pp^ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 


C.  G.  Roberts 


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in  2008  with  funding  from 

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Famous  Women 


MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS. 


FAMOUS  WOMEN 

As  Described  by 
Famous    Writers 

EDITED    AND    TRANSLATED 

By  ESTHER    SINGLETON 

AUTHOR    OF    "turrets,    TOWERS    AND    TEMPLES 

pictures/'  "wonders  of  nature/' 

AND   palaces/'   "famous   PAINTINGS 

INGS/'    "  GOLDEN    ROD    FAIRY    BOOK/'    "  PARIS/'   "  LONDON, 
"love    in    LITERATURE    AND    ART/'    "A    GUIDE    TO    THE 
OPERA/'    AND    TRANSLATOR    OF    "THE    MUSIC    DRAMAS    OF 
RICHARD   WAGNl.  " 

-  With   Numerous  Illustrations 


NEW  YORK 
DODD,    MEAD    &    COMPANY 

1907 


Copyright,  1904, 

BY 

DoDD,  Mead  8c  Company 


Published    Octt^htr 


GIFT 


C  i  3:3cz 
Preface 

THIS  book  is  a  compilation  of  sketches  of  famous  and 
beautiful  women  by  well-known  authors.  The  prin- 
ciple of  selection  in  every  case  has  been  the  political  influence 
exercised  by  the  celebrity,  either  actively  or  passively.  Few 
of  the  most  famous  reigning  sovereigns  of  the  past  have  natur- 
ally been  included  on  account  of  their  masculine  cast  of  mind, 
or  strength  of  character.  Lady  Jane  Grey  was  important 
politically,  on  the  other  hand,  by  being  a  tool  in  the  hands 
of  ambitious  relatives  near  the  throne. 

After  sovereigns,  we  come  to  a  class  who  held  power  by 
deputy,  as  exemplified  by  Margaret  of  Parma.  Then  fol- 
lows that  large  and  most  important  class  of  queens  of  the 
left  hand,  the  Malntenons,  Pompadours,  etc.  The  women 
who  held  sway  by  intrigue  or  open  exercise  of  power  in  the 
Courts  of  Charles  II.,  and  Louis  XIV.  and  Louis  XV. 
naturally  occupy  a  large  place  in  this  book. 

The  last  class  of  women  who  have  been  important  in  the 
councils  and  movements  of  nations  are  the  more  purely  in- 
tellectual characters  and  those  who  plunged  into  civil  strife 
for  the  mere  love  of  intrigue,  such  as  the  Duchesses  de 
Longueville,  de  Chevreuse,  and  du  Maine,  La  Grande 
Mademoiselle,  Madame  Roland,  etc.  The  matter  I  have 
selected  deals  chiefly  with  their  activities  in  politics. 


746 


VI  PREFACE 

The  heroic  type  of  the  woman  who  plunges  into  active  or 
militant  politics  is  found  in  Joan  of  Arc  and  Agnes  Sorel. 
There  are  a  few  cases  in  which  the  real  monarch  has  been 
a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  a  strong  woman.  The  type  of  the 
latter  is  shown  in  Madame  des  Ursins;  and  Lady  Hamilton 
and  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough  also  exercised  influence 
over  courts,  the  results  of  which  affected  the  world's  history. 
Politics  affected  the  tone  of  many  famous  salons,  and  women 
such  as  Madame  Recamier  and  Lady  Blessington,  through 
their  acquaintance  with  ministers  and  nobles,  were  politically 
important  in  their  day.  These  are  also  included  in  this 
collection. 

The  limited  space  of  such  a  volume  as  this  naturally  pre- 
vents me  from  giving  a  full  gallery  of  women  of  political 
importance,  but  I  have  tried  to  present  as  many  types  as 
possible.  E.  S. 

New  York,  September,  1904 


Contents 


Page 

Mary^    Queen    of    Scots i 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 

Madame    de    Maintenon 14 

Henry  Morse  Stephens. 

Louise    de    Queroualle^    Duchess    of    Ports- 

.    mouth 21 

John  Heneage  Jesse. 
Margaret  of  Parma^  Regent  of  the  Nether- 
lands         29' 

William  H.  Prescott. 

Marie  de  Mancini 38 

Alexandre  Dumas. 

Elizabeth^   Queen   of   England      ....      46 

John  Richard  Green. 

La  Marquise  de  Montespan 61 

Adolphe  Duplessis. 

The  Duchess  of  Cleveland 67 

Mrs.  Jameson. 

Madame   Roland •      .      .      76 

Alphonse  de  Lamartine. 

Lady   Hamilton 84} 

John  Paget, 

La  Duchesse  du  Maine 95 

Charles  Augustin  Sainte-Beuve. 
vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

Page 

Agnes  Sorel         102 

W.  H.  Davenport  Adams. 

Lady  Blessington •      .      .    115 

H.  Barton  Baker. 

La  Duchesse  de  Chevreuse 124 

Sutherland  Menzies. 

Lady  Jane  Grey ,133 

James  Anthony  Froude. 

Anne  de  Pisseleu^  Duchesse  d'Estampes      .      .    144 
Madame  Bolly. 

BiANCA  Capello ,148 

Alexandre  Dumas. 
Madame  de  Pompadour  157 

Arsene  Houssaye. 

Bess  of  Hard  wick.  Countess  of  Shrewsbury      .    167 
Thomas  Seccombe. 

Gabrielle  d'Estrees 173 

Charles  Augustin  Sainte-Beuve 

Isabella  of  Austria 182 

Charles  Louis  de  Sevelinges. 

Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden      .....    188 

John  Doran. 

Mrs.  Fitzherbert ,     ,    197 

John  Fyvie. 

Henriette  de  Balzac  d'Entragues         •      •      «    ao8 
Leon  Marlet. 

Sarah^  Duchess  of  Marlborough     .      •      *      *    S14 
W.  C.  Taylor. 

Madame  de  Longueville       .      .      ,      •      .      .    222 

HiPPOLYTE  DE  LaPORTE. 


CONTENTS  ix 

Pagb 

Catherine  II.,  Empress  of  Russia      .      .      .      .231 
Herman  Merivale. 

Madame  Recamier 240 

Noel  Williams. 

Elizabeth  Cromwell  Claypole        ....     248 

Mark  Noble. 

Isabella  dTste  254 

Julia  Cartwright. 

La  Duchesse  de  Berri 260 

A.  E.  Challice. 

Joan  of  Arc 270 

Charles  Knight. 

Henrietta  Maria^  Duchess  of  Orleans       .      .     282 

John  Heneage  Jesse. 

Diane  de  Poitiers 287 

Madame  Bolly. 

Madame  des  Ursins 292 

Sutherland  Menzies. 

Madame  du  Barry  304 

Alphonse  de  Lamartine. 

Margaret  Douglas^  Countess  of  Lennox        .    308 

T.  F.  Henderson. 

Catherine  de'  Medici 318 

Anne  Forbes  Bush. 

Caterina  Cornaro^  Queen  of  Cyprus    .      .      .329 

Dezos  de   la   Roquette. 

Anne  Marie   Louise  d'Orleans,  Duchesse  de 

Montpensier    (La  Grande  Mademoiselle)     334 
Charles  Duke  Yonge. 


Illustrations 


Mary,   Queen   of   Scots    ....    Mytens  .    .    .    .Frontispiece 

Hampton  Court  Palace.  pacing  pagb 

Madame  de  Maintenon    ....    Mignard    ......    14 

Versailles. 

Duchess  of  Portsmouth    ....    Mignard 22 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Margaret   of   Parma Alonzo  Coello    ....   30 

The  Hermitage. 

Marie  de  Mancini Mignard 38 

Berlin. 

Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England    .    Zucchero 46 

Hampton  Court  Palace. 

La   Marquise  de   Montespan    .    .    Unknown 62 

Versailles. 

The  Duchess  of   Cleveland    .    .   Lely 68 

Hampton  Court  Palace. 

Madame  Roland Heinsius    ...•••    76 

Versailles. 

Lady  Hamilton     .......    Romney 84 

National  Portrait  Gallery  (London). 

La  Duchesse  du  Maine    .    .    .^ 9^ 

Versailles. 

Agnes  Sorel Fouquet 102 

Antvierp. 

Lady  Blessington Lawrence 116 

Wallace  Collection  (London). 

La  Duchesse  de  Chevreuse 124 

Lady  Jane  Grey    .......   Lucas  de  Heere  .    .    .    .134 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Anne   de    Pisseleu School  of  Francois  Clouet  ^44 

Dresden. 

BiANCA  Capello Bronzino 148 

Pitti  {Florence), 


xii  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAaNC  PAGE 

Madame  de  Pompadour    ....    Boucher 158 

National  Portrait  Gallery  (Edinburgh). 

Bess   of   Hardwick Janssen 168 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Gabrielle  d'Estrees 174 

Isabella  of  Austria Van  Dyck 182 

Belvedere    {Vienna). 

Christina,  Queen  of  Sweden 188 

Versailles. 

Mrs.  Fitzherbert Romney 198 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Henriette  de  Balzac  d'Entragues        308 

Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marlborough   .    Kneller 214 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Madame  de  Longueville    ....    Unknown 222 

Chantilly. 
Catherine  II.,  Empress  of  Russia 233 

Madame  Recamier David    .......  340 

Louvre. 

Elizabeth  Cromwell  Claypole    .    J.  M.  Wright    ....  248 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Isabella   d'Este Titian 254 

Belvedere    {Vienna). 

La  Duchesse  de  Berri Lawrence 260 

Joan  of  Arc Ingres 370 

Louvre. 

Duchess  of  Orleans Mignard 282 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London). 

Diane  de  Poitiers 288 

Madame  des  Ursins 292 

Versailles. 

Madame  du  Barry Unknown 304 

Versailles. 

Countess  of  Lennox Unknown 308 

National  Portrait  Gallery   (London), 

Catherine  de'  Medici Unknown 318 

Louvre, 

Caterina  Cornaro Titian 330 

Ufjizi    {Florence). 
La  Grande  Mademoiselle    •<,<>       ».        334 


MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

(1542— 1587) 
ALGERNON    CHARLES   SWINBURNE 

MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS,  daughter  of  King 
James  V.  and  his  wife,  Mary  of  Lorraine,  was  born 
in  December,  1542,  a  few  days  before  the  death  of  her  father, 
heart-broken  by  the  disgrace  of  his  arms  at  Solway  Moss, 
where  the  disaffected  nobles  had  declined  to  encounter  an 
enemy  of  inferior  force  in  the  cause  of  a  king  whose  systematic 
policy  had  been  directed  against  the  privileges  of  their  order, 
and  whose  representative  on  the  occasion  was  an  unpopular 
favourite  appointed  general  in  defiance  of  their  ill-will.  On 
September  9,  following,  the  ceremony  of  coronation  was  duly 
performed  upon  the  infant.  A  scheme  for  her  betrothal  to 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales,  was  defeated  by  the  grasping  greed 
of  his  father,  whose  obvious  ambition  to  annex  the  Crown  of 
Scotland  at  once  to  that  of  England  aroused  instantly  the 
general  suspicion  and  indignation  of  Scottish  patriotism.  In 
1548,  the  Queen  of  six  years  old  was  betrothed  to  the 
Dauphin  Francis,  and  set  sail  for  France,  where  she  arrived 
on  August  15.  The  society  in  which  the  child  was  reared  is 
known  to  readers  of  Brantome  as  well  as  that  of  imperial 
Rome  at  its  worst  is  known  to  readers  of  Suetonius  or 
Petronius, — as  well  as  that  of  Papal  Rome  at  its  worst  to 


2  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

readers  of  the  diary  kept  by  the  domestic  chaplain  of  Pope 
Alexander  VI.  Only  in  their  pages  can  a  parallel  be  found 
to  the  gay  and  easy  record  which  reveals  without  sign  of 
shame  or  suspicion  of  offence  the  daily  life  of  a  court  com- 
pared to  which  the  Court  of  King  Charles  II.  is  as  the  Court 
of  Queen  Victoria  to  the  society  discribed  by  Grammont. 
Debauchery  of  all  kinds  and  murder  in  all  forms  were  the 
daily  subjects  of  excitement  or  of  jest  to  the  brilliant  circle 
which  revolved  around  Queen  Catherine  de'  Medici.  After 
ten  years'  training  under  the  tutelage  of  the  woman  whose 
main  instrument  of  policy  was  the  corruption  of  her  own 
children,  the  Queen  of  Scots,  aged  fifteen  years  and  five 
months,  was  married  to  the  eldest  and  feeblest  of  the  brood 
on  April  24,  1558.  On  November  17,  Elizabeth  became 
Queen  of  England,  and  the  Princes  Lorraine — Francis  the 
great  Duke  of  Guise  and  his  brother  the  Cardinal — induced 
their  niece  and  her  husband  to  assume,  in  addition  to  the  arms 
of  France  and  Scotland,  the  arms  of  a  country  over  which 
they  asserted  the  right  of  Mary  Stuart  to  reign  as  legitimate 
heiress  of  Mary  Tudor.  Civil  strife  broke  out  in  Scotland 
between  John  Knox  and  the  Queen-Dowager — between  the 
self-styled  "  congregation  of  the  Lord  "  and  the  adherents  of 
the  Regent,  whose  French  troops  repelled  the  combined  forces 
of  the  Scotch  and  their  English  allies  from  the  beleaguered 
walls  of  Leith,  little  more  than  a  month  before  the  death  of 
their  mistress  in  the  Castle  of  Edinburgh,  on  June  10,  1560. 
On  August  25,  Protestantism  was  proclaimed  and  Catholi- 
cism suppressed  in  Scotland  by  a  convention  of  states  assem- 
bled without  the  assent  of  the  absent  Queen.  On  December  5, 


MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS  3 

Francis  II.  died;  in  August,  1561,  his  widow  left  France 
for  Scotland,  having  been  refused  a  safe  conduct  by  Eliza- 
beth on  the  ground  of  her  own  previous  refusal  to  ratify 
the  treaty  made  with  England  by  her  commissioners  in  the 
same  month  of  the  preceding  year.  She  arrived  nevertheless 
in  safety  in  Leith,  escorted  by  three  of  her  uncles  of  the  house 
of  Lorraine,  and  bringing  in  her  train  her  future  biographer, 
Brantome,  and  Chastelard,  the  first  of  all  her  voluntary 
victims.  On  August  21,  she  first  met  the  only  man  able  to 
withstand  her;  and  their  first  passage  of  arms  left,  as  he 
recorded,  upon  the  mind  of  John  Knox  an  ineffable  impres- 
sion of  her  "  proud  mind,  crafty  wit,  and  indurate  heart 
against  God  and  his  truth."  And  yet  her  acts  of  concession 
and  conciliation  were  such  as  no  fanatic  on  the  opposite  side 
could  have  approved.  She  assented,  not  only  to  the  undis- 
turbed maintenance  of  the  new  creed,  but  even  to  a  scheme 
for  the  endowment  of  the  Protestant  ministry  out  of  the 
confiscated  lands  of  the  Church. 

Her  first  step  was  unconsciously  taken  on  the  road  to 
Fotheringay,  when  she  gave  her  heart  at  first  sight  to  her 
kinsman  Henry,  Lord  Darnley,  son  of  Matthew  Stuart,  Earl 
of  Lennox,  who  had  suffered  an  exile  of  twenty  years  in 
expiation  of  his  intrigues  with  England,  and  had  married  the 
niece  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  daughter  of  his  sister  Margaret, 
the  widow  of  James  IV.,  by  her  second  husband,  the  Earl 
of  Angus.  Queen  Elizabeth,  with  the  almost  incredible 
want  of  tact  or  instinctive  delicacy  which  distinguished 
and  disfigured  her  vigorous  intelligence,  had  recently  pro- 
posed as  a  suitor  to  the  Queen  of  Scots  her  own  low- 


4  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

born  favourite,  Lord  Robert  Dudley,  the  widower,  if  not 
the  murderer,  of  Amy  Robsart ;  and  she  now  protested  against 
the  project  of  marriage  between  Mary  and  Darnley.  Mary, 
who  had  already  married  her  kinsman  in  secret  at  Stirling 
Castle  with  Catholic  rites  celebrated  in  the  apartment  of 
David  Rizzio,  her  secretary  for  correspondence  with  France, 
assured  the  English  ambassador,  in  reply  to  the  protest  of  his 
mistress,  that  the  marriage  would  not  take  place  for  three 
months,  when  a  dispensation  from  the  Pope  would  allow  the 
cousins  to  be  publicly  united  without  oifence  to  the  Church. 
On  July  29,  1565,  they  were  accordingly  remarried  at  Holy- 
rood.  The  hapless  and  worthless  bridegroom  had  already 
incurred  the  hatred  of  two  powerful  enemies,  the  Earls  of 
Morton  and  Glencairn;  but  the  former  of  these  took  part 
with  the  Queen  against  the  forces  raised  by  Murray,  Glen- 
cairn, and  others,  under  the  nominal  leadership  of  Hamilton, 
Duke  of  Chatelheraut,  on  the  double  plea  of  danger  to  the 
new  religion  of  the  country,  and  of  the  illegal  proceeding  by 
which  Darnley  had  been  proclaimed  King  of  Scots,  without 
the  needful  constitutional  assent  of  the  estates  of  the  realm. 
Murray  was  cited  to  attend  the  "  raid,"  or  array,  levied  by  the 
King  and  Queen,  and  was  duly  denounced  by  public  blast  of 
trumpet  for  his  non-appearance.  He  entered  Edinburgh  with 
his  forces,  but  failed  to  hold  the  town  against  the  guns  of  the 
castle,  and  fell  back  upon  Dumfries  before  the  advance  of  the 
royal  army,  which  was  now  joined  by  James  Hepburn,  Earl 
of  Bothwell,  on  his  return  from  a  three  years*  outlawed  exile 
in  France. 

Darnley  at  once  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  party 


MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS  5 

opposed  to  the  poliqr  of  the  Queen  and  her  secretary — a  policy 
which  at  that  moment  was  doubly  and  trebly  calculated  to 
exasperate  the  fears  of  the  religious  and  the  pride  of  the 
patriotic.  Mary  was  invited,  if  not  induced,  by  the  King  of 
Spain  to  join  his  league  for  the  suppression  of  Protestantism ; 
while  the  actual  or  prospective  endowment  of  Rizzio  with 
Morton's  office  of  chancellor,  and  the  projected  attainder  of 
Murray  and  his  allies,  combined  to  inflame  at  once  the  anger 
and  the  apprehension  of  the  Protestant  nobles.  On  March  9, 
the  palace  of  Holyrood  was  invested  by  a  troop  under  the 
command  of  Morton,  while  Rizzio  was  dragged  by  force  out 
of  the  Queen's  presence  and  slain  without  trial  in  the  heat 
of  the  moment. 

The  favour  shown  to  Bothwell  had  not  yet  given  occasion 
for  scandal,  though  his  character  as  an  adventurous  libertine 
was  as  notable  as  his  reputation  for  military  hardihood;  but 
as  the  summer  advanced  his  insolence  increased  with  his 
influence  at  Court  and  the  general  aversion  of  his  rivals.  He 
was  richly  endowed  by  Mary  from  the  greater  and  lesser 
spoils  of  the  Church ;  and  the  three  wardenships  of  the  border, 
united  for  the  first  time  in  his  person,  gave  the  Lord  High 
Admiral  of  Scotland  a  position  of  unequalled  power.  In  the 
gallant  discharge  of  its  duties  he  was  dangerously  wounded 
by  a  leading  outlaw,  whom  he  slew  in  single  combat;  and 
while  yet  confined  to  Hermitage  Castle  he  received  a  visit  of 
two  hours  from  the  Queen,  who  rode  thither  from  Jedburgh 
and  back  through  twenty  miles  of  the  wild  borderland,  where 
her  person  was  in  perpetual  danger  from  the  freebooters 
whom  her  father's  policy  had  striven  and  had   failed   to 


6  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

extirpate.  The  result  of  this  daring  ride  was  a  ten  days' 
fever,  after  which  she  removed  by  short  stages  to  Craig- 
millar,  where  a  proposal  for  her  divorce  from  Darnley  was 
laid  before  her  by  Bothwell,  Murray,  Huntley,  Argyle,  and 
Lethington,  who  was  chosen  spokesman  for  the  rest. 

On  the  evening  of  Sunday,  February  9,  Mary  took  her  last 
leave  of  the  miserable  boy  who  had  so  often  and  so  mortally 
outraged  her  as  Consort  and  Queen.  That  night  the  whole 
city  (Glasgow)  was  shaken  out  of  sleep  by  an  explosion  of 
gunpowder  which  shattered  to  fragments  the  building  in 
which  he  should  have  slept  and  perished;  and  next  morning 
the  bodies  of  Darnley  and  a  page  were  found  strangled  in  a 
garden  adjoining  it,  whither  they  had  apparently  escaped  over 
a  wall  to  be  despatched  by  the  hands  of  Bothwell's  attendant 
confederates. 

Upon  the  view  which  may  be  taken  of  Mary*s  conduct 
during  the  next  three  months  depends  the  whole  debatable 
question  of  her  character.  According  to  the  professed  cham- 
pions of  that  character,  this  conduct  was  a  tissue  of  such 
dastardly  imbecility,  such  heartless  irresolution,  and  such 
brainless  inconsistency,  as  forever  to  dispose  of  her  time- 
honoured  claim  to  the  credit  of  intelligence  and  courage.  It 
is  certain  that  just  three  months  and  six  days  after  the  murder 
of  her  husband,  she  became  the  wife  of  her  husband's 
murderer. 

In  1 58 1, Mary  accepted  the  advice  of  Catherine  de'  Medici 
and  Henry  III.  that  she  should  allow  her  son's  title  to  reign 
as  King  of  Scotland  conjointly  with  herself  when  released  and 
restored  to  a  share  of  the  throne.    This  plan  was  but  part  of 


MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS  7 

a  scheme  including  the  invasion  of  England  by  her  kinsman, 
the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  was  to  land  in  the  north  and  raise 
a  Scottish  army  to  place  the  released  prisoner  of  Sheffield 
beside  her  son  on  the  throne  of  Elizabeth.  After  the  over- 
throw of  the  Scottish  accomplices  in  this  notable  project, 
Mary  poured  forth  upon  Elizabeth  a  torrent  of  pathetic  and 
eloquent  reproach  for  the  many  wrongs  she  had  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  her  hostess,  and  pledged  her  honour  to  the  assur- 
ance that  she  now  aspired  to  no  kingdom  but  that  of  heaven. 
In  the  autumn  of  1584,  she  was  removed  to  Wingfield 
Manor,  under  charge  of  Sir  Ralph  Sadler  and  John  Somers, 
who  accompanied  her  also  on  her  next  removal  to  Tutbury 
in  January,  1585.  In  April,  1585,  Sir  Amyas  Paulet  was 
appointed  to  the  office  of  which  Sadler,  accused  of  careless 
indulgence,  had  requested  to  be  relieved;  and  on  Christmas 
Eve  she  was  removed  from  the  hateful  shelter  of  Tutbury  to 
the  Castle  of  Chartley  in  the  same  county.  Her  correspond- 
ence in  cypher  from  thence  with  her  English  agents  abroad, 
intercepted  by  Walsingham  and  deciphered  by  his  secretary, 
gave  eager  encouragement  to  the  design  for  a  Spanish  invasion 
of  England  under  the  Prince  of  Parma — an  enterprise  in 
which  she  would  do  her  utmost  to  make  her  son  take  part, 
and  in  case  of  his  refusal  would  induce  the  Catholic  nobles 
of  Scotland  to  betray  him  into  the  hands  of  Philip,  from  whose 
tutelage  he  should  be  released  only  on  her  demand,  or  if  after 
her  death  he  should  wish  to  return,  nor  then  unless  he  had 
become  a  Catholic.  But  even  these  patriotic  and  maternal 
schemes  to  consign  her  child  and  reconsign  the  Kingdom  to 
the  keeping  of  the  Inquisition,  incarnate  in  the  widower  of 


8  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

Mary  Tudor,  were  superseded  by  the  attraction  of  a  con- 
spiracy against  the  throne  and  life  of  Elizabeth.  In  August 
the  conspirators  were  netted,  and  Mary  was  arrested  at  the 
gate  of  Tixall  Park,  whither  Paulet  had  taken  her  under 
pretence  of  a  hunting  party.  On  September  25,  she  was 
removed  to  the  strong  castle  of  Fotheringay  in  Northampton- 
shire. On  October  6,  she  was  desired  by  letter  from  Elizabeth 
to  answer  the  charges  brought  against  her  before  certain  of 
the  chief  English  nobles  appointed  to  sit  in  commission  on 
the  cause. 

On  October  14  and  15,  1586,  the  trial  was  held  in  the 
hall  of  Fotheringay  Castle.  Alone,  "  without  one  counseller 
on  her  side  among  so  many,"  Mary  conducted  the  whole  of 
her  own  defence  with  courage  incomparable  and  unsurpassa- 
ble ability.  Pathos  and  indignation,  subtlety  and  simplicity, 
personal  appeal  and  political  reasoning,  were  the  alternate 
weapons  with  which  she  fought  against  all  odds  of  evidence 
or  inference,  and  disputed  step  by  step  every  inch  of 
disputable  ground.  She  repeatedly  insisted  on  the  production 
of  proof  in  her  own  handwriting  as  to  her  complicity  with 
the  project  of  the  assassins  who  had  expiated  their  crime  on 
the  20th  and  21st  of  the  month  preceding.  When  the  charge 
was  shifted  to  the  question  of  her  intrigues  with  Spain,  she 
took  her  stand  resolutely  on  her  right  to  convey  whatever 
right  she  possessed,  though  now  no  kingdom  was  left  her  for 
disposal,  to  whomsoever  she  might  choose.  One  single  slip 
she  made  in  the  whole  course  of  her  defence ;  but  none  could 
have  been  more  unluckily  characteristic  and  significant. 
When  Burghley  brought  against  her  the  unanswerable  charge 


MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS  9 

of  having  at  that  moment  in  her  service,  and  in  receipt  of  an 
annual  pension,  the  instigator  of  a  previous  attempt  on  the 
life  of  Elizabeth,  she  had  the  unwary  audacity  to  cite  in  her 
justification  the  pensions  allowed  by  Elizabeth  to  her 
adversaries  in  Scotland,  and  especially  to  her  son.  But  except 
for  this  single  instance  of  oversight  or  perversity,  her  defence 
was  throughout  a  masterpiece  of  indomitable  ingenuity,  of 
delicate  and  steadfast  courage,  of  womanly  dignity  and 
genius. 

Finally  she  demanded,  as  she  had  demanded  before,  a 
trial  either  before  the  estates  of  the  realm  lawfully  as- 
sembled, or  else  before  the  Queen  in  council.  So  closed 
the  second  day  of  the  trial;  and  before  the  next  day*s  work 
could  begin  a  note  of  two  or  three  lines  hastily  written  at 
midnight  informed  the  commissioners  that  Elizabeth  had 
suddenly  determined  to  adjourn  the  expected  judgment  and 
transfer  the  place  of  it  to  the  star-chamber.  Here,  on 
October  25,  the  commissioners  again  met;  and  one  of  them 
alone,  Lord  Zouch,  dissented  from  the  verdict  by  which  Mary 
was  found  guilty  of  having,  since  June  i  preceding,  com- 
passed and  imagined  divers  matters  tending  to  the  destruction 
of  Elizabeth.  This  verdict  was  conveyed  to  her,  about  three 
weeks  later,  by  Lord  Buckhurst  and  Robert  Beale,  clerk  of 
the  privy  council. 

Mary  received  the  announcement  with  majestic  tranquillity, 
expressing  in  dignified  terms  her  readiness  to  die,  her 
consciousness  that  she  was  a  martyr  for  her  religion,  and  her 
total  ignorance  of  any  conspiracy  against  the  life  of  Elizabeth, 
At  night  she  took  a  graceful  and  affectionate  leave  of  her 


lo  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

attendants,  distributed  among  them  her  money  and  jewels, 
wrote  out  in  full  the  various  legacies  to  be  conveyed  by  her 
will,  and  charged  her  apothecary,  Gorion,  with  her  last 
messages  for  the  King  of  Spain.  In  these  messages  the  whole 
nature  of  the  woman  was  revealed.  Not  a  single  friend,  not 
a  single  enemy,  was  forgotten;  the  slightest  service,  the 
slightest  wrong,  had  its  place  assigned  in  her  faithful  and 
implacable  memory  for  retribution  or  reward.  Forgiveness  of 
injuries  was  as  alien  from  her  fierce  and  loyal  spirit  as  forget- 
f ulness  of  benefits ;  the  destruction  of  England  and  its  liberties 
by  Spanish  invasion  and  conquest  was  the  strongest  aspiration 
of  her  parting  soul.  At  eight  next  morning  she  entered  the 
hall  of  execution,  after  having  taken  leave  of  the  weeping 
envoy  from  Scotland,  to  whom  she  gave  a  brief  message  for 
her  son ;  took  her  seat  on  the  scaffold,  listened  with  an  air  of 
even  cheerful  unconcern  to  the  reading  of  the  sentence, 
solemnly  declared  her  innocence  of  the  charge  conveyed  in  it 
and  her  consolation  in  the  prospect  of  ultimate  justice,  rejected 
the  professional  services  of  Richard  Fletcher,  Dean  of  Peter- 
borough, lifted  up  her  voice  in  Latin  against  his  in  English 
prayer,  and  when  he  and  his  fellow-worshippers  had  fallen 
duly  silent,  prayed  aloud  for  the  prosperity  of  her  own 
Church,  for  Elizabeth,  for  her  son,  and  for  all  the  enemies 
whom  she  had  commended  over  night  to  the  notice  of  the 
Spanish  invader  j  then,  with  no  less  courage  than  had  marked 
every  hour  and  every  action  of  her  life,  received  the  stroke  of 
death  from  the  wavering  hand  of  the  headsman. 

Mary  Stuart  was  in  many  respects  the  creature  of  her  age, 
of  her  creed,  and  of  her  station;  but  the  noblest  and  most 


MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS         II 

noteworthy  qualities  of  her  nature  were  independent  of  rank, 
opinion,  or  time.  Even  the  detractors  who  defend  her  con- 
duct on  the  plea  that  she  was  a  dastard  and  a  dupe,  are  com- 
pelled in  the  same  breath  to  retract  this  implied  reproach, 
and  to  admit,  with  illogical  acclamation  and  incongruous 
applause,  that  the  world  never  saw  more  splendid  courage  at 
the  service  of  more  brilliant  intelligence;  that  a  braver,  if 
not  "  a  rarer  spirit  never  did  steer  humanity."  A  kinder 
or  more  faithful  friend,  a  deadlier  or  more  dangerous  enemy, 
it  would  be  impossible  to  dread  or  to  desire.  Passion  alone 
could  shake  the  double  fortress  of  her  impregnable  heart  and 
ever-active  brain.  The  passion  of  love,  after  very  sufficient 
experience,  she  apparently  and  naturally  outlived ;  the  passion 
of  hatred  and  revenge  was  as  inextinguishable  in  her  inmost 
nature  as  the  emotion  of  loyalty  and  gratitude.  Of  repentance 
it  would  seem  that  she  knew  as  little  as  of  fear;  having  been 
trained  in  her  infancy  in  a  religion  where  the  Decalogue  was 
supplanted  by  the  Creed.  Adept  as  she  was  in  the  most 
exquisite  delicacy  of  dissimulation,  the  most  salient  note  of  her 
original  disposition  was  daring,  rather  than  subtlety.  Beside 
or  behind  the  voluptuous  or  intellectual  attractions  of  beauty 
and  culture,  she  had  about  her  the  fresher  charm  of  a  fearless 
and  frank  simplicity,  a  genuine  and  enduring  pleasure  in  small 
and  harmless  things  no  less  than  in  such  as  were  neither.  In 
1562,  she  amused  herself  for  some  days  by  living  "  with  her 
little  troop  "  in  the  house  of  a  burgess  of  St.  Andrews  "  like 
a  burgess's  wife,"  assuring  the  English  ambassador  that  he 
should  not  find  the  Queen  there, — "  nor  I  know  not  myself 
where  she  is  become."    From  Sheffield  Lodge,  twelve  years 


12  MARY,    QUEEN    OF    SCOTS 

later,  she  applied  to  the  Archbishop  of  Glasgow  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Guise  for  some  pretty  little  dogs,  to  be  sent  her 
in  baskets  very  warmly  packed — "  for  besides  reading  and 
working,  I  take  pleasure  only  in  all  the  little  animals  that  I 
can  get." 

No  lapse  of  reconciling  time,  no  extent  of  compara- 
tive indulgence,  could  break  her  in  to  resignation,  sub- 
mission, or  toleration  of  even  partial  restraint.  Three 
months  after  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  had  caused 
some  additional  restrictions  to  be  placed  upon  her  freedom 
of  action,  Shrewsbury  writes  to  Burghley  that  "  rather  than 
continue  this  imprisonment  she  sticks  not  to  say  she  will  give 
her  body,  her  son,  and  country  for  liberty  " ;  nor  did  she  ever 
show  any  excess  of  regard  for  any  of  the  three.  For  her 
own  freedom  of  will  and  of  way,  of  passion  and  of  action,  she 
cared  much ;  for  her  creed  she  cared  something ;  for  her  coun- 
try she  cared  less  than  nothing.  She  would  have  flung  Scot- 
land with  England  into  the  hellfire  of  Spanish  Catholicism 
rather  than  forego  the  faintest  chance  of  personal  revenge. 
Her  profession  of  a  desire  to  be  instructed  in  the  doctrines  of 
Anglican  Protestantism  was  so  transparently  a  pious  fraud 
as  rather  to  afford  confirmation  than  to  arouse  suspicion  of 
her  fidelity  to  the  teaching  of  her  Church.  Elizabeth,  so 
shamefully  her  inferior  in  personal  loyalty,  fidelity,  and 
gratitude,  was  as  clearly  her  superior  on  the  one  all-important 
point  of  patriotism.  The  saving  salt  of  Elizabeth's  character, 
with  all  Its  well-nigh  incredible  mixture  of  heroism  and 
egotism,  meanness  and  magnificence,  was  simply  this;  that, 
pvermuch  as  she  loved  herself,  she  did  yet  love  England 


MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS         13 

better.  Her  best  though  not  her  only  fine  qualities  were 
national  and  political,  the  high  public  virtues  of  a  good  public 
servant;  in  the  private  and  personal  qualities  which  attract 
and  attach  a  friend  to  his  friend  and  a  follower  to  his  leader, 
no  man  or  woman  was  ever  more  constant  and  more  eminent 
than  Mary  Queen  of  Scots. 


MADAME    D£   MAINTENON 

(1635—1719) 

HENRY    MORSE    STEPHENS 

FRANCOISE  D'AUBIGNE,  Marquise  de  Maintenon, 
the  second  wife  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  unacknowledged 
Queen  of  France  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  reign,  was 
born  in  a  prison  at  Niort  on  November  27,  1635.  Her 
father.  Constant  d'Aubigne,  was  the  son  of  Agrippa 
d'Aubigne,  the  famous  friend  and  general  of  Henry  IV., 
and  had  been  imprisoned  as  a  Huguenot  malcontent,  but  her 
mother,  a  fervent  Catholic,  had  the  child  baptised  in  her 
religion,  her  sponsors  being  the  Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld, 
father  of  the  author  of  the  MaximSj  and  the  Comtesse  de 
Neuillant.  In  1639,  Constant  d'Aubigne  was  released  from 
prison  and  took  all  his  family  with  him  to  Martinique, 
where  he  died  in  1645,  after  having  lost  what  fortune 
remained  to  him  at  cards.  Madame  d'Aubigne  returned  to 
France,  and  from  sheer  poverty  unwillingly  yielded  her 
daughter  to  her  sister-in-law,  Madame  de  Villette,  who 
made  the  child  very  happy,  but  unfortunately  for  her,  con- 
verted, or  pretended  to  convert,  her  to  Protestantism.  When 
this  was  known,  an  order  of  state  was  issued  that  she  should 
be  entrusted  to  Madame  de  Neuillant,  her  god  mother. 
Every  means,  every  indignity  even,  was  now  used  to  convert 

14 


MADAME  DK  MAINTKNON. 


MADAME    DE    MAINTENON  i5 

her  back  to  Catholicism,  but  at  the  last  she  only  yielded  on 
the  condition  that  she  need  not  believe  that  the  soul  of 
Madame  de  Villette  was  lost.  Once  reconverted,  she  was 
neglected,  and  sent  home  to  live  with  her  mother,  who  had 
only  a  small  pension  of  200  livres  a  year,  which  ceased  on 
her  death  in  1650.  The  Chevalier  de  Mere,  a  man  of  some 
literary  distinction,  who  had  made  her  acquaintance  at 
Madame  de  Neuillant's,  discovered  her  penniless  condition, 
and  introduced  his  "  young  Indian,"  as  he  called  her,  to 
Scarron,  the  famous  wit  and  comic  writer,  at  whose  house 
all  the  literary  society  of  the  day  assembled.  The  wit,  who 
was  of  good  legal  family,  and  had  a  kind  heart,  took  a  fancy 
to  the  friendless  girl,  and  offered  either  to  pay  for  her 
admission  to  a  convent,  or,  though  he  was  deformed  and 
an  invalid,  to  marry  her  himself.  She  accepted  his 
offer  of  marriage,  and  became  Madame  Scarron  in  165 1. 
For  nine  years  she  was  not  only  his  most  faithful  nurse, 
but  an  attraction  to  his  house,  where  she  tried  to  bridle 
the  licence  of  the  conversation  of  the  time.  On  the 
death  of  Scarron  in  1660  Anne  of  Austria  continued 
his  pension  to  his  widow,  and  even  increased  it  to  2,000 
livres  a  year,  which  enabled  her  to  entertain  and  fre- 
quent the  literary  society  her  husband  had  made  her  ac- 
quainted with;  but  on  the  Queen-mother's  death,  in  1666, 
the  King,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  her  friends,  refused  to 
continue  her  pension,  and  she  prepared  to  leave  Paris  for 
Lisbon  as  lady  attendant  to  the  Queen  of  Portugal.  But 
before  she  started  she  met  Madame  de  Montespan,  who  was 
already,  though  not  avowedly,  the  King's  mistress,  at  the 


l6  MADAME    DE    MAINTENON 

Hotel  d'Albret,  and  the  lady  In  question  took  such  a  fancy  to 
her  that  she  obtained  the  continuance  of  her  pension,  which 
put  ofiE  for  ever  the  question  of  going  to  Portugal. 

Madame  de  Montespan  did  yet  more  for  her,  for  when, 
in  1669,  her  first  child  by  the  King  was  born,  Madame 
Scarron  was  established  with  a  large  income  and  a  large 
staff  of  servants  at  Vaugirard  to  bring  up  the  King's  children 
in  secrecy  as  they  were  born.  In  1674,  the  King  determined 
to  have  his  children  at  court,  and  their  governess,  who  had 
now  made  sufficient  fortune  to  buy  the  estate  of  Maintenon, 
accompanied  them.  The  King  had  now  many  opportunities 
of  seeing  Madame  Scarron,  and,  though  at  first  he  was 
prejudiced  against  her,  her  even  temper  showed  so  advan- 
tageously against  the  storms  of  passion  and  jealousy  exhibited 
by  Madame  de  Montespan  that  she  grew  steadily  in  his 
favour,  and  had  in  1678  the  gratification  of  having  her  estate 
at  Maintenon  raised  to  a  marquisate,  and  herself  entitled 
Madame  de  Maintenon  by  the  King  himself.  Such  favours 
brought  down  the  fury  of  Madame  de  Montespan's  jealousy, 
and  Madame  de  Maintenon's  position  was  almost  unendur- 
able, until,  in  1680,  the  King  severed  their  connection  by 
making  the  latter  second  lady  in  waiting  to  the  dauphiness, 
and  soon  after  Madame  de  Montespan  left  the  court.  The 
new  "  amie  "  used  her  influence  on  the  side  of  decency,  and 
the  Queen  openly  declared  she  had  never  been  so  well 
treated  as  at  this  time,  and  eventually  died  in  Madame  de 
Maintenon's  arms  in  1683. 

The  Queen's  death  opened  the  way  to  yet  greater  advance- 
ment; in  1684,  she  was  made  first  lady  in  waiting  to  the 


MADAME    DE    MAINTENON  17 

dauphiness,  and,  in  the  winter  of  1685,  or,  Voltaire  says,  in 
January,  1686,  she  was  privately  married  to  the  King  by 
Harlay,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  in  the  presence,  it  is  believed, 
of  Pere  la  Chaise,  the  King's  confessor,  the  Marquis  de 
Montchevreuil,  the  Chevalier  de  Forbin,  and  Bontemps. 
No  written  proof  of  the  marriage  is  extant,  but  that  it  took 
place  is  nevertheless  certain. 

Her  life  during  the  thirty  years  of  her  second  married  life 
must  be  studied  from  more  than  one  side,  and  can  be  so  fully 
from  her  letters,  which  are  masterpieces  even  of  an  age  when 
Madame  de  Sevigne  wrote,  and  of  which  many  authentic 
examples  are  extant. 

As  a  wife  she  is  wholly  admirable;  she  had  to  entertain 
a  man  who  would  not  be  amused,  and  had  to  submit  to  that 
terribly  strict  court  etiquette  of  absolute  obedience  to  the 
King's  inclinations,  which  Saint-Simon  so  vividly  describes, 
and  yet  be  always  cheerful,  and  never  complain  of  weariness 
or  ill-health.  Her  political  influence  has  probably  been  over- 
stated, but  it  was  supreme  in  matters  of  detail.  The  ministers 
of  the  day  used  to  discuss  and  arrange  all  the  business  to  be 
done  with  the  King  beforehand  with  her,  and  it  was  all  done 
in  her  cabinet  and  in  her  presence,  but  the  King  in  more 
important  matters  often  chose  not  to  consult  her.  Such 
mistakes  as,  for  instance,  the  replacing  ot  Catinat  by  Villeroi 
may  be  attributed  to  her,  but  not  whole  policies — notably, 
according  to  Saint-Simon,  not  the  policy  with  regard  to  the 
Spanish  succession.  Even  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  and  the  Dragonnades  have  been  laid  to  her  charge, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  in  spite  of  ardent  Catholicism, 


l8  MADAME    DE    MAINTENON 

she  retained  a  liking  for  her  father's  religion,  and  opposed,  if 
not  very  vigorously,  the  cruelties  of  the  Dragonnades.  She 
was  probably  afraid  to  say  much,  or  peril  her  great  reputation 
for  devotion,  which  had  in  1692  obtained  for  her  from 
Innocent  XII.  the  right  of  visitation  over  all  the  convents  in 
France.  Where  she  deserves  blame  is  in  her  use  of  her 
power  for  personal  patronage,  as  in  compassing  the  promo- 
tions of  Chamillart  and  Villeroi,  and  the  frequent  assistance 
given  to  her  brother,  Comte  Charles  d'Aubigne.  Her 
influence  was  on  the  whole  a  moderating  and  prudent  force, 
and  the  King,  when  he  wanted  her  advice,  used  to  say, 
"  Quen  pensez  voire  Soliditef ''  or  "  Consultons  la  Raison." 
Her  social  influence  was  not  as  great  as  it  might  have  been, 
owing  to  her  holding  no  recognised  position  at  court,  but 
it  was  always  exercised  on  the  side  of  decency  and  morality, 
and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  from  her  former  life  she 
was  Intimate  with  the  literary  people  of  the  day,  and  never 
deserted  her  old  friends. 

Side  by  side  with  this  public  life,  which  wearied  her  with 
its  shadowy  power,  occasionally  crossed  by  a  desire  to  be 
recognised  as  Queen,  she  passed  a  nobler  and  sweeter  private 
existence  as  the  foundress  of  St.  Cyr.  Madame  de  Maintenon 
was  a  bom  teacher;  she  had  so  won  the  hearts  of  her  first 
pupils  that  they  preferred  her  to  their  own  mother,  and  was 
similarly  successful  later  with  the  young  and  impetuous 
Duchesse  de  Bourgogne,  and  she  had  always  wished  to  estab- 
lish a  home  for  poor  girls  of  good  family  placed  in  such 
straits  as  she  herself  had  experienced.  As  soon  as  her 
fortunes  began  to  mend,  she  started  a  small  home  for  poor 


MADAME    DE    MAINTENON  19 

girls  at  Ruel,  which  she  afterwards  moved  to  Noisy,  and 
which  was  the  nucleus  of  the  splendid  institution  of  St.  Cyr, 
which  the  King  had  endowed  in  1686  at  her  request  out  of 
the  funds  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Denis.  She  was  in  her  element 
there.  She  herself  drew  up  the  rules  of  the  institution;  she 
examined  every  minute  detail;  she  befriended  her  pupils  in 
every  way;  and  her  heart  often  turned  from  the  weariness 
of  Versailles,  or  of  Marly,  to  her  "  little  girls  "  at  St.  Cyr. 
It  was  for  the  girls  at  St.  Cyr  that  Racine  wrote  his  Esther 
and  his  Athalie,  and  it  was  because  he  managed  the  affairs 
of  St.  Cyr  well  that  Chamillart  became  controller-general  of 
the  finances. 

The  later  years  of  her  power  were  marked  by  the  promo- 
tion of  her  old  pupils,  the  children  of  the  King  and  Madame 
de  Montespan,  to  high  dignity  between  the  blood  royal  and 
the  peers  of  the  realm,  and  it  was  doubtless  under  the 
influence  of  her  dislike  for  the  Due  d'Orleans  that  the  King 
drew  up  his  will,  leaving  the  personal  care  of  his  successor 
to  the  Due  de  Maine,  and  hampering  the  Due  d'Orleans  by 
a  council  of  regency.  On,  or  even  before,  her  husband's 
death  she  retired  to  St.  Cyr,  and  had  the  chagrin  of  seeing 
all  her  plans  for  the  advancement  of  the  Due  de  Maine  over- 
thrown by  means  of  the  parliament  of  Paris.  However,  the 
Regent  Orleans  in  no  way  molested  her,  but  on  the  contrary 
visited  her  at  St.  Cyr,  and  continued  her  pension  of  48,000 
livres.  She  spent  her  last  years  at  St.  Cyr  in  perfect  seclu- 
sion, but  an  object  of  great  interest  to  all  visitors  to  France, 
who,  however,  with  the  exception  of  Peter  the  Great,  found 
it  impossible  to  get  an  audience  with  her. 


20  MADAME    DE    MAINTENON 

On  April  15,  1 7 19,  she  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  choir 
at  St.  Cyr,  bequeathing  her  estate  at  Maintenon  to  her  niece, 
the  only  daughter  of  her  brother  Charles,  and  wife  of  the 
Marechal  de  Noailles,  to  whose  family  it  still  belongs. 

Such  was  the  life  of  the  extraordinary  woman  who  kept 
till  the  last  the  heart  of  Louis  XIV.,  marked  by  a  virtue 
almost  amounting  to  prudery,  in  strong  contrast  to  the 
generations  which  preceded  and  followed  her,  by  a  love  of 
power,  and  a  use  of  it  which  can  indeed  be  excused  by  her 
early  life,  but  which  was  not  exercised  for  the  good  of  France, 
and  by  a  religious  devotion  which  was  narrow,  if  not  violently 
fanatical,  but  sweetened  throughout  by  her  ardent  love  for 
her  "  little  girls,"  whom  she  had  saved  from  the  difficulties 
of  life,  and  whom  she  loved  with  all  a  mother's  love. 


LOUISE  DE  QUEROUALLE,  DUCHESS  OF 
PORTSMOUTH 

(1649— 1734) 
JOHN    HENEAGE   JESSE 

WHEN  it  was  the  policy  of  Louis  XIV.  to  detach 
the  Court  of  England  from  the  Triple  League, 
he  is  well  known  to  have  selected  the  charming  Duchess 
of  Orleans,  the  favourite  sister  of  Charles,  to  persuade 
him  to  that  disgraceful  measure.  To  any  other  monarch 
he  would  have  despatched  a  Sully  or  a  Richelieu:  to 
Charles  he  sent  a  brilliant  embassy  of  gay  men  and  beauti- 
ful women,  accompanied  by  the  trappings  of  pleasure  and  the 
promise  of  gold.  "  Louis,"  says  Hume,  "  in  order  to  fix  him 
in  the  French  interests,  resolved  to  bind  him  by  the  ties  of 
pleasure,  the  only  ones  which  with  him  were  irresistible ;  and 
he  made  him  a  present  of  a  French  mistress,  by  whose  means 
he  hoped  for  the  future  to  govern  him."  We  need  scarcely 
add  that  Mademoiselle  de  Queroualle  was  the  person  alluded 
to  by  Hume.  She  was  about  five-and-twenty,  when  in  1670, 
she  appeared  in  the  train  of  the  Duchess  of  Orleans  at  the 
English  Court:  her  manners  were  fascinating,  her  wit  agree- 
ble,  and  her  face  beautiful.  Charles  was  struck  with  her 
accomplishments,  and  Buckingham  and  the  enemies  of  the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland  assisting  with  their  intrigues,  she 
shortly  became  the  piofessed  mistress  of  the  easy  Monarch, 

21 


22  DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH 

The  Peerages  style  her  the  Lady  Louise  Renee  de  Penencovet 
de  Queroualle,  but  this  long  list  of  names  was  shortly  abbre- 
viated by  the  English  into  the  singular  and  familiar  one  of 
Carwell.  Little  is  known  of  her  origin  and  early  history, 
but  that  she  was  descended  from  a  noble  family  in  Lower 
Brittany,  and  that  she  had  been  taken  from  a  convent  to  be 
maid  of  honour  to  the  Duchess.  On  accepting  the  proposals 
of  Charles,  she  received  the  same  appointment  to  his  Queen. 
Her  arrival  in  England  was  celebrated  both  by  Dryden  and 
St.  Evremond;  by  the  former  in  dull,  and  by  the  latter  in 
indecent  verse. 

From  this  period  we  find  her  a  spy  on  the  actions  of 
Charles;  a  mischievous  meddler  in  the  English  Court;  a 
promoter  of  French  interests,  and  of  English  debasement  and 
disorders.  There  is  no  dishonest  transaction — no  profligate 
political  intrigue  which  disgraced  the  last  years  of  this 
unhappy  reign  in  which  she  does  not  appear  as  a  principal 
mover.  The  King's  acceptance  of  a  pension  from  France; 
the  disgraceful  engagements  with  that  country;  the  crusade 
against  parliaments;  and  the  treachery  to  the  Dutch,  were 
alike  hatched  in  her  closet  and  fostered  under  her  influence. 
Thus  could  a  trifler  and  a  beauty  sway  the  destinies  of 
Europe.  With  a  head  teeming  with  politics  and  a  heart 
with  the  love  of  pleasure,  the  intriguing  Frenchwoman  was 
as  much  detested  by  the  nation  as  she  was  beloved  by  the 
King.  Charles  continued  more  constant  to  her  than  to  any 
of  his  other  mistresses,  and  she  duped  and  enchanted  him  to 
the  end. 

On  the  igth  of  August,  1673,  the  King  suddenly  raised  her 


DUCHESS  OF  PORTSMOUTH. 


DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH  23 

to  the  highest  honours  in  the  land.  He  created  her  by  letters 
patent,  Baroness  of  Petersfield,  Countess  of  Farnham,  and 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  while  the  French  King  showed 
his  gratitude  by  conferring  on  her  the  Duchy  of  Au- 
bigny  in  France.  Two  years  afterwards,  in  1675,  her 
young  son  by  Charles  was  created  Duke  of  Richmond  and 
Lennox. 

To  these  honours  were  added  pensions  and  profits  sufficient 
to  beggar  a  far  wealthier  Court  than  that  of  Charles.  In  a 
pasquinade,  printed  in  1680,  and  entitled  Articles  of  High 
Treason  Against  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  among  other 
grave  charges  (such  as  an  intention  to  subvert  the  govern- 
ment of  Church  and  State,  and  to  restore  tyranny  and  the 
Pope),  she  is  accused  of  having  profited  by  the  sale  of  every 
place  of  trust  and  emolument  in  the  gift  of  the  Court.  It 
is  even  said  that  when  Lord  Ossory  was  sent  by  Charles  to 
Madrid,  in  order  to  present  his  niece,  the  young  Queen  of 
Spain,  with  jewels  valued  at  fifteen  thousand  pounds,  the 
Duchess  caused  Lord  Ossory's  services  to  be  dispensed  with, 
and  prevailed  on  her  lover  to  bestow  the  jewels  on  herself. 
In  the  notes  to  Howell's  State  Trials,  she  is  stated  to  have 
refused  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  to  procure  the  pardon 
of  the  celebrated  Lord  Russell.  As  no  authority,  however, 
is  produced,  and  as  the  rejection  of  so  splendid  a  bribe  is 
opposed  to  all  our  preconceived  notions  of  her  character,  the 
story  may  reasonably  be  doubted. 

According  to  Evelyn,  the  apartments  of  the  Duchess  of 
Portsmouth,  at  Whitehall,  had  ten  times  the  "  richness  and 
glory "   of  the  Queen's.     An   account  of  a  morning  visit 


24  DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH 

which  he  paid  to  them  in  1683,  in  company  with  the  King,  is 
amusingly  detailed  in  his  diary.  "  Following  his  Majesty," 
he  says,  "  through  the  gallery,  I  went  with  the  few  who 
attended  him,  into  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth's  dressing- 
room  within  her  bed-chamber,  where  she  was  in  her  morning 
loose  garment,  her  maids  combing,  newly  out  of  her  bed,  his 
Majesty  and  the  gallants  standing  about  her;  but  that  which 
engaged  my  curiosity  was  the  rich  and  splendid  furniture  of 
this  woman's  apartment,  now  twice  or  thrice  pulled  down 
and  rebuilt  to  satisfy  her  prodigal  and  expensive  pleasures, 
while  her  Majesty's  does  not  exceed  some  gentlemen's  wives 
in  furniture  and  accommodation.  Here  I  saw  the  new 
fabric  of  French  tapistry,  for  design,  tenderness  of  work, 
and  incomparable  imitation  of  the  best  paintings,  beyond 
anything  I  had  ever  beheld.  Some  pieces  had  Versailles,  St. 
Germains,  and  other  palaces  of  the  French  King,  with  hunt- 
ings, figures,  and  landscapes,  exotic  fowls,  and  all  to  the  life 
rarely  done.  Then  for  Japan  cabinets,  screens,  pendule 
clocks,  great  vases  of  wrought  plate,  tables,  stands,  chimney 
furniture,  sconces,  branches,  braseras,  etc.,  all  of  massive 
silver,  and  out  of  number ;  besides  some  of  his  Majesty's  best 
paintings.  Surfeiting  of  this,  I  dined  at  Sir  Stephen  Fox's, 
and  went  contented  home  to  my  poor,  but  quiet,  villa.  What 
contentment  can  there  be  in  the  riches  and  splendour  of  this 
world  purchased  with  vice  and  dishonour?  "  These  splen- 
did apartments  had  been  three  times  rebuilt  for  a  whim. 
They  were  eventually  destroyed  by  fire  in  1691. 

The  countenance  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth,  though 
undoubtedly  beautiful,  possessed  the  worst  of  all  faults,  a 


DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH  25 

want  of  expression.     Evelyn  says,  in  his  opinion  she  had  a 
"  simple  baby  face,"  and  in  a  poem  of  the  time  we  find  2 

"  That  baby  face  of  thine  and  those  black  eyes, 
Methinks  should  ne'er  a  hero's  love  surprise; 
None,  that  had  eyes,  e'er  saw  in  that  French  face 
O'ermuch  of  beauty,  form,  or  comely  grace." 

Another  contemporary,  Reresby,  speaks  of  her  merely  as 
**  a  very  fine  woman." 

Horace  Walpole  mentions  a  portrait  of  her,  which  he 
says  was  once  in  the  royal  collection,  in  which,  in  the  character 
of  Iphigenia,  and  Charles  in  that  of  Cymon,  they  are  made 
to  illustrate  the  beautiful  lines  in  Dryden's  poem: 

"  Where,  in  a  plain  defended  by  a  wood. 
Crept  through  the  matted  grass  a  crystal  flood, 
By  which  an  alabaster  fountain  stood: 
And  on  the  margin  of  the  fount  was  laid. 
Attended  by  her  slaves,  a  sleeping  maid." 

Another  picture  of  her  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,  in  which  the 
royal  mistress  and  her  infant  son,  the  Duke  of  Richmond, 
are  represented  as  the  Madonna  and  Child,  was  painted  for 
a  convent  of  nuns  in  France. 

In  a  little  work,  published  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Charles,  and  purporting  to  be  a  secret  history  of  his  reign,  it 
is  asserted  that  the  Duchess  was  actually  married  to  her 
royal  lover  by  the  Common  Prayer  Book,  and  according  to 
the  ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England.  As  Queen 
Catherine  was  still  alive,  this  must  have  been  done  to  satisfy 
the  lady's  conscience.  In  a  pasquinade  also,  already  referred 
to,  we  find  the  twentieth  Article  of  Treason  inserted  as  fol- 


26  DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH 

lows:  "That  she  has  by  her  creatures  and  frienJs,  given 
out  and  whispered  abroad,  that  she  was  married  to  his 
Majesty,  and  that  her  son,  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  is  his 
Majesty's  legitimate  son,  and  consequently  Prince  of  Wales, 
his  health  being  frequently  drunk  by  her  and  her  creatures 
in  her  night  debauches  and  merry  meetings,  to  the  great 
dishonour  and  reflection  of  his  Majesty,  and  the  manifest 
peril  and  danger  of  these  Kingdoms."  It  is  certain,  that,  in 
order  to  gain  her  over  to  his  interests,  the  unprincipled 
Shaftesbury  flattered  her  with  the  hopes  of  her  son's  succeed- 
ing to  the  throne. 

From  the  fate  of  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland  she  seemed  to 
have  learned  wisdom.  Instead  of  storming  her  easy  lover 
into  compliance,  as  did  her  imperious  predecessor,  she 
enslaved  him  by  the  usual  arts  of  her  sex;  and  by  means  of 
tears,  jealousies,  affectations  of  sickness,  and  real  caprice, 
wound  herself  securely  round  his  heart.  The  kind  feeling 
which  Charles  ever  bore  towards  the  merry  and  warm- 
hearted Nell  Gwynn  appears  to  have  lused  her  some 
uneasiness.  But  otherwise  she  had  little  reason  to  complain ; 
her  influence  over  the  heart  and  the  politics  of  the  King 
continued  unshaken  to  the  last;  and  as  she  was  the  longest, 
so  was  she  the  latest  passion  of  Charles.  As  she  v/as  nearly 
forty  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  death,  she  must  have 
been  gifted  with  other  powers  of  pleasing  besides  beauty. 
Burnet  mentions  her  uneasiness  on  liearing  that  Louis  XIV. 
had  sent  away  his  mistress,  Madnme  de  Montespan,  on 
account  of  religious  scruples,  and  that  he  had  afterwards 
taken   the  sacrament.     Charles,   however,  was   unlikely   to 


DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH  27 

sacrifice  his  pleasures  to  his  principles,  and  it  must  have 
been  a  stretch  of  imagination  to  have  imagined  him  a  devotee. 

Though  apparently  attached  to  the  person  of  Charles,  it 
did  not  prevent  her  from  being  unfaithful  to  him.  Lord 
Danby,  vv^ho  possessed  advantages  of  person  and  fortune,  and 
the  gallant  and  handsome  Grand  Prior  of  Vendome, — the 
soldier,  the  statesman,  and  the  priest, — ^were  believed  to  have 
shared  her  favours  with  the  King.  Unlike  the  Duchess  of 
Cleveland,  she  was  particularly  circumspect  in  her  amours, 
and  her  infidelity  seems  to  have  been  concealed  from  Charles. 
Unlike  her  predecessor  in  another  respect,  she  was  generally 
respectful  to  the  Queen,  with  whom  her  appointment  as  lady 
of  the  bed-chamber  constantly  brought  her  in  contact. 

Charles  spoke  of  her  with  great  affection  in  his  last 
moments,  and  his  death  seems  to  have  cost  her  some  tears. 
"I  went,"  writes  M.  Barillon  to  Louis  XIV.,  "to  the 
apartments  of  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth.  I  found  her 
overwhelmed  with  grief,  the  physicians  having  deprived  her 
of  all  hope."  James  honoured  her  with  a  visit  of  condolence 
after  the  death  of  Charles. 

Having  now  no  tie  to  bind  her  to  England,  she  retired, 
with  what  money  and  jewels  she  had  amassed,  to  her  native 
country.  Her  former  habits  of  splendour,  and  a  fatal  addic- 
tion to  play,  proved  destructive  to  her  fortunes,  and  she 
finally  subsisted  on  a  small  pension  from  the  French  Govern- 
ment. Voltaire  saw  her  at  the  age  of  seventy,  and  mentions 
in  his  Siecle  de  Louis  XIV.  that  years  had  but  little  impaired 
her  beauty,  and  that  her  face  was  still  lovely,  and  her  person 
commanding.     Lady  Sunderland  speaks  of  her,  in  1690,  as 


28  DUCHESS    OF    PORTSMOUTH 

"  scandalous  and  poor,"  and  some  years  afterwards  we  find 
her  mentioned  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Due  de  3aint-Simon, 
as  very  old,  very  penitent,  and  very  poor — ^'  fort  vielle,  tres 
convertie  et  penitenie,  et  tres  mal  dans  ses  affaires/' 

The  Duchess  paid  two  visits  to  England  nfter  the  death  of 
Charles,  once  in  1699,  and  again  in  1715,  when  she  was 
presented  to  Queen  Caroline,  then  Princess  of  Wales.  On 
the  latter  occasion  she  is  said  to  have  had  the  effrontery  to 
apply  for  a  pension  to  George  I.  She  turned  devotee  in 
her  old  age,  and  died  at  Aubigny,  in  France,  In  November, 
1734,  in  her  ninetieth  year. 


MARGARET  OF  PARMA,  REGENT  OF  THE 
NETHERLANDS 

(1522 — 1586) 

WILLIAM    H.    PRESCOTT 

MARGARET,  DUCHESS  OF  PARMA,  was  the 
natural  daughter  of  Charles  V.,  born  about  four 
years  before  his  marriage  with  Isabella  of  Portugal.  Mar- 
garet's mother,  Margaret  Vander  Gheenst,  belonged  to  a 
noble  Flemish  house.  Her  parents  both  died  during  her 
infancy.  The  little  orphan  was  received  into  the  family  of 
Count  Hoogstraten,  who,  with  his  wife,  reared  her  with  the 
same  tenderness  as  they  did  their  own  offspring.  At  the  age 
of  seventeen  she  was  unfortunate  enough  to  attract  the  eye 
of  Charles  V.,  who,  then  in  his  twenty-third  year,  was 
captivated  by  the  charms  of  the  Flemish  maiden.  Mar- 
garet's virtue  was  not  proof  against  the  seductions  of  her 
royal  suitor;  and  the  victim  of  love — or  of  vanity — became 
the  mother  of  a  child,  who  received  her  own  name  of 
Margaret. 

The  Emperor's  aunt,  then  Regent  of  the  Netherlands, 
took  charge  of  the  Infant;  and  on  the  death  of  that  princess 
she  was  taken  Into  the  family  of  the  Emperor's  sister,  Mary, 
Queen  of  Hungary,  who  succeeded  in  the  Regency.  Mar- 
garet's birth  did  not  long  remain  a  secret;  and  she  received 
an  education  suited  to  the  high  station  she  was  to  occupy  in 

29 


30  MARGARET    OF    PARMA 

life.  When  only  twelve  years  of  age,  the  Emperor  gave  her 
in  marriage  to  Alexander  de'  Medici,  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  some  fifteen  years  older  than  herself.  The  ill- 
fated  connection  did  not  subsist  long,  as  before  tv^elve 
months  had  elapsed,  it  was  terminated  by  the  violent  death 
of  her  husband. 

When  she  had  reached  the  age  of  womanhood,  the  hand 
of  the  young  widow  was  bestowed,  together  with  the  Duchies 
of  Parma  and  Placentia  as  her  dowry,  on  Ottavio  Farnese, 
grandson  of  Paul  III.  The  bridegroom  was  but  twelve 
years  old.  Thus  again  it  was  Margaret's  misfortune  that 
there  should  be  such  disparity  between  her  own  age  and 
that  of  her  husband,  as  to  exclude  anything  like  sympathy  or 
similarity  in  their  tastes.  In  the  present  instance,  the  boy- 
ish years  of  Ottavio  inspired  her  with  a  sentiment  not  very 
different  from  contempt,  that  in  later  life  settled  into  an 
indifference  in  which  both  parties  appear  to  have  shared,  and 
which,  as  a  contemporary  remarks  with  naivete,  was  only 
softened  into  a  kindlier  feeling  when  the  husband  and  wife 
had  been  long  separated  from  each  other.  In  truth,  Mar- 
garet was  too  ambitious  of  power  to  look  on  her  husband  in 
any  other  light  than  that  of  a  rival. 

In  her  general  demeanour,  her  air,  her  gait,  she  bore  great 
resemblance  to  her  aunt,  the  Regent.  Like  her,  Margaret 
was  excessively  fond  of  hunting,  and  she  followed  the  chase 
with  an  intrepidity  that  might  have  daunted  the  courage  of 
the  keenest  sportsman.  She  had  but  little  of  the  natural 
softness  that  belongs  to  the  sex,  but  in  her  whole  deportment 
was  singuarly  masculine;  so  that,  to  render  the  words  of  the 


MARGARET  OF  PARMA. 


MARGARET    OF    PARMA  31 

historian  by  a  homely  phrase,  in  her  woman's  dress  she 
seemed  like  a  man  in  petticoats.  As  if  to  add  to  the  illusion, 
Nature  had  given  her  somewhat  of  a  beard;  and,  to  crown 
the  whole,  the  malady  to  which  she  was  constitutionally  sub- 
ject was  a  disease  to  which  women  are  but  rarely  liable, — 
the  gout.  It  was  good  evidence  of  her  descent  from 
Charles  V. 

Though  masculine  in  her  appearance,  Margaret  was  not 
destitute  of  the  kindler  qualities  which  are  the  glory  of  her 
sex.  Her  disposition  was  good;  but  she  relied  much  on  the 
advice  of  others,  and  her  more  objectionable  acts  may  prob- 
ably be  referred  rather  to  their  influence  than  to  any  inclina- 
tion of  her  own. 

Her  understanding  was  excellent,  her  apprehension  quick. 
She  showed  much  versatility  in  accommodating  herself  to 
the  exigencies  of  her  position,  as  well  as  adroitness  in  the 
management  of  affairs,  which  she  may  have  acquired  in  the 
schools  of  Italian  politics.  In  religion,  she  was  as  orthodox 
as  Philip  II.  could  desire.  The  famous  Ignatius  Loyola 
had  been  her  confessor  in  early  days.  The  lessons  of 
humility  which  he  inculcated  were  not  lost  on  her,  as  may 
be  inferred  from  the  care  she  took  to  perform  the  ceremony, 
in  Holy  Week,  of  washing  the  dirty  feet — she  preferred  them 
in  this  condition — of  twelve  poor  maidens;  outstripping,  in 
this  particular,  the  humility  of  the  Pope  himself.  Such  was 
the  character  of  Margaret  of  Parma,  who  now,  in  the  thirty- 
eighth  year  of  her  age,  was  called,  at  a  most  critical  period,  to 
take  the  helm  of  the  Netherlands. 

The  appointment  seems  to  have  given  equal  satisfaction  to 


32  MARGARET    OF    PARMA 

herself  and  to  her  husband,  and  no  objection  was  made  to 
Philip's  purpose  of  taking  back  with  him  to  Castile  their 
little  son,  Alexander  Farnese, — a  name  destined  to  become 
in  later  times  so  renowned  in  the  Netherlands.  The  avowed 
purpose  was  to  give  the  boy  a  training  suited  to  his  rank, 
under  the  eye  of  Philip ;  combined  with  which,  according  to 
the  historian,  was  the  desire  of  holding  a  hostage  for  the 
fidelity  of  Margaret  and  of  her  husband,  whose  dominions 
in  Italy  lay  contiguous  to  those  of  Philip  in  that  country. 

Early  in  June,  1559,  Margaret  of  Parma,  having  reached 
the  Low  Countries,  made  her  entrance  in  great  state  into 
Brussels,  where  Philip  awaited  her,  surrounded  by  his  whole 
court  of  Spanish  and  Flemish  nobles.  The  Duke  of  Savoy 
was  also  present,  as  well  as  Margaret's  husband,  the  Duke 
of  Parma,  then  in  attendance  on  Philip.  The  appointment 
of  Margaret  was  not  distasteful  to  the  people  of  the  Nether- 
lands, for  she  was  their  countrywoman,  and  her  early  days 
had  been  passed  amongst  them.  Her  presence  was  not  less 
welcome  to  Philip,  who  looked  forward  with  eagerness  to  the 
hour  of  his  departure.  His  first  purpose  was  to  present  the 
new  Regent  to  the  nation,  and  for  this  he  summoned  a  meet- 
ing of  the  states-general  at  Ghent,  in  the  coming  August. 

The  Regent  was  to  be  assisted  in  the  government  by  three 
councils,  which  of  old  time  had  existed  in  the  land:  the 
council  of  finance,  for  the  administration,  as  the  name 
implies,  of  the  revenues ;  the  privy  council,  for  affairs  of  jus- 
tice, and  the  internal  concerns  of  the  country ;  and  the  coun- 
cil of  state,  for  matters  relating  to  peace  and  war,  and  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  nation.     Into  this  last,  the  supreme 


MARGARET    OF    PARMA  33 

council,  entered  several  of  the  Flemish  nobles,  and  among 
them  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  Count  Egmont.  There 
were,  besides.  Count  Barlaimont,  president  of  the  council  of 
finance;  Viglius,  president  of  the  privy  council,  and  Gran- 
velle,  Bishop  of  Arras. 

The  tidings  of  the  Regent's  abdication  were  received  with 
dismay  throughout  the  provinces.  All  the  errors  of  her 
government,  her  acts  of  duplicity,  the  excessive  rigour  with 
which  she  had  of  late  visited  offences, — all  were  forgotten 
in  the  regret  felt  for  her  departure.  Men  thought  only  of 
the  prosperity  which  the  country  had  enjoyed  under  her  rule, 
the  confidence  which  in  earlier  years  she  had  bestowed  on 
the  friends  of  the  people,  the  generous  manner  in  which  she 
had  interposed,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  mitigate  the 
hard  policy  of  the  Court  of  Madrid.  And  as  they  turned 
from  these  more  brilliant  passages  of  her  history,  their  hearts 
were  filled  with  dismay  while  they  looked  gloomily  into  the 
future. 

Addresses  poured  in  upon  her  from  all  quarters.  The 
different  cities  vied  with  one  another  in  expressions  of  regret 
for  her  departure,  while  they  invoked  the  blessings  of 
Heaven  on  her  remaining  days.  More  than  one  of  the 
provinces  gave  substantial  evidence  of  their  good-will  by 
liberal  donatives.  Brabant  voted  her  the  sum  of  25,000 
florins,  and  Flanders  30,000.  The  neighbouring  princes, 
and  among  them  Elizabeth  of  England,  joined  with  the 
people  of  the  Netherlands  in  professions  of  respect  for  the 
Regent,  as  well  as  of  regret  that  she  was  to  relinquish  the 
government. 


34  MARGARET    OF    PARMA 

Cheered  by  these  assurances  of  the  consideration  in  which 
she  was  held  both  at  home  and  abroad,  Margaret  quitted 
Brussels  at  the  close  of  December,  1567.  She  was  attended 
to  the  borders  of  Brabant  by  Alva,  and  thence  conducted  to 
Germany  by  Count  Mansfeldt  and  an  escort  of  Flemish 
nobles.  There,  bidding  adieu  to  all  that  remained  of  her 
former  state,  she  pursued  her  journey  quietly  to  Italy.  For 
some  time  she  continued  with  her  husband  in  his  ducal 
residence  at  Parma.  But,  wherever  lay  the  fault,  it  was 
Margaret's  misfortune  to  taste  but  little  of  the  sweets  of 
domestic  intercourse.  Soon  afterwards  she  removed  to 
Naples,  and  there  permanently  established  her  abode,  on 
estates  which  had  been  granted  her  by  the  crown.  Many 
years  later,  when  her  son,  Alexander  Farnese,  was  called  to 
the  government  of  the  Netherlands,  she  quitted  her  retire- 
ment to  take  part  with  him  in  the  direction  of  public  affairs. 
It  was  but  for  a  moment ;  and  her  present  departure  from  the 
Netherlands  may  be  regarded  as  the  close  of  her  political 
existence. 

The  government  of  Margaret  continued  from  the  autumn 
of  1559  to  the  end  of  1567,  a  period  of  eight  years.  It  was 
a  stormy  and  most  eventful  period ;  for  it  was  then  that  the 
minds  of  men  were  agitated  to  their  utmost  depths  by  the 
new  doctrines  which  gave  birth  to  the  revolution.  Mar- 
garet's Regency,  indeed,  may  be  said  to  have  furnished  the 
opening  scenes  of  that  great  drama.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
Low  Countries  were  accustomed  to  the  sway  of  a  woman. 
Margaret  was  the  third  of  her  line  that  had  been  intrusted 
with  the  Regency.     In  qualifications  for  the  office,  she  was 


MARGARET    OF    PARMA  35 

probably  not  inferior  to  her  predecessors.  Her  long  residence 
in  Italy  had  made  her  acquainted  with  the  principles  of 
government  in  a  country  where  political  science  was  more 
carefully  studied  than  in  any  other  quarter  of  Europe.  She 
was  habitually  industrious,  and  her  robust  frame  was  capable 
of  any  amount  of  labour.  If  she  was  too  masculine  in  her 
nature  to  allow  of  the  softer  qualities  of  her  sex,  she  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  exempt  from  the  fondness  for  pleasure, 
and  from  most  of  the  frivolities  which  belonged  to  the 
women  of  the  voluptuous  clime  in  which  she  had  lived.  She 
was  staunch  in  her  devotion  to  the  Catholic  faith;  and  her 
loyalty  was  such,  that,  from  the  moment  of  assuming  the 
government,  she  acknowledged  no  stronger  motive  than  that 
of  conformity  to  the  will  of  her  sovereign.  She  was  fond 
of  power;  and  she  well  knew  that,  with  Philip,  absolute 
conformity  to  his  will  was  the  only  condition  on  which  it 
was  to  be  held. 

With  her  natural  good  sense,  and  the  general  moderation 
of  her  views,  she  would,  doubtless,  have  ruled  over  the  land 
as  prosperously  as  her  predecessors,  had  the  times  been  like 
theirs.  But,  unhappily  for  her,  the  times  had  greatly 
changed.  Still  Margaret,  living  on  the  theatre  of  action, 
and  feeling  the  pressure  of  circumstances,  would  have  gone 
too  far  to  conform  to  the  change.  But,  unfortunately,  she 
represented  a  prince,  dwelling  at  a  distance,  who  knew  no 
change  himself,  allowed  no  concessions  to  others, — ^whose 
conservative  policy  rested  wholly  on  the  past. 

It  was  unfortunate  for  Margaret  that  she  never  fully 
possessed  the  confidence  of  Philip.    Whether  from  distrust 


36  MARGARET    OF    PARMA 

of  her  more  accommodating  temper,  or  of  her  capacity  for 
government,  he  gave  a  larger  share  of  it,  at  the  outset,  to 
Granvelle  than  to  her.  If  the  Regent  could  have  been 
blind  to  this,  her  eyes  would  soon  have  been  opened  to  the 
fact  by  the  rivals  w^ho  hated  the  minister.  It  was  not  long 
before  she  hated  him,  too.  But  the  removal  of  Granvelle 
did  not  establish  her  in  her  brother's  confidence.  It  rather 
increased  his  distrust,  by  the  necessity  it  imposed  on  her  of 
throwing  herself  into  the  arms  of  the  opposite  party,  the 
friends  of  the  people.  From  this  moment,  Philip's  con- 
fidence was  more  heartily  bestowed  on  the  Duke  of  Alva, 
even  on  the  banished  Granvelle,  than  on  the  Regent.  Her 
letters  remained  too  often  unanswered.  The  answers,  when 
they  did  come,  furnished  only  dark  and  mysterious  hints  of 
the  course  to  be  pursued.  She  was  left  to  work  out  the 
problem  of  government  by  herself,  sure  for  every  blunder  to 
be  called  to  a  strict  account.  Rumours  of  the  speedy  coming 
of  the  King  suggested  the  idea  that  her  own  dominion  was 
transitory,  soon  to  be  superseded  by  that  of  a  higher  power. 

At  last  came  the  Compromise  and  the  League.  Margaret's 
eyes  seemed  now  to  be  first  opened  to  the  direction  of  the 
course  she  was  taking.  This  was  followed  by  the  explosion 
of  the  iconoclasts.  The  shock  fully  awoke  her  from  her 
delusion.  She  was  as  zealous  for  the  Catholic  Church  as 
Philip  himself;  and  she  saw  with  horror  that  it  was  trem- 
bling to  Its  foundations.  A  complete  change  seemed  to  take 
place  in  her  convictions, — in  her  very  nature.  She  repudi- 
ated all  those  with  whom  she  had  hitherto  acted.  She 
embraced,  as  heartily  as  he  could  desire,  the  stern  policy  of 


MARGARET     OF    PARMA  37 

Philip.  She  proscribed,  she  persecuted,  she  punished, — and 
that  with  an  excess  of  vigour  that  does  little  honour  to  her 
memory.  It  was  too  late.  The  distrust  of  Philip  was  not 
to  be  removed  by  this  tardy  compliance  with  his  wishes.  A 
successor  was  already  appointed;  and  at  the  very  moment 
when  she  flattered  herself  that  the  tranquillity  of  the  country, 
and  her  own  authority,  were  established  on  a  permanent 
basis,  the  Duke  of  Alva  was  on  his  march  across  the 
mountains. 

Yet,  it  was  fortunate  for  Margaret's  reputation  that  she 
was  succeeded  in  the  government  by  a  man  like  Alva.  The 
darkest  spots  on  her  administration  become  light  when 
brought  into  comparison  with  his  reign  of  terror. 


MARIE  D£  MANCINI 

(1639— 1715) 
ALEXANDRE    DUMAS 

iROM  the  very  moment  that  Madame  de  Mancini 
fell  sick,  she  regarded  herself  as  lost.  Her  husband, 
who  was  a  great  astrologer,  had  first  predicted  his  own  death, 
then  that  of  his  son  who  was  killed  at  the  combat  at  the 
Porte  Saint-Antoine,  and,  finally,  that  of  his  wife,  which 
was  to  occur  in  her  forty-second  year.  Now  the  poor 
woman  began  to  have  some  hope  that  her  husband  was 
mistaken  this  time,  for  she  had  but  a  few  days  left  to  com- 
plete her  forty-second  year,  when,  as  we  have  said,  she  felt 
ill,  and  went  to  bed  to  rise  no  more.  Her  brother,  the 
Cardinal,  was  present  at  her  deathbed,  and  she  expired, 
leaving  her  two  daughters,  Marie  and  Hortense,  to  his  care. 

Cardinal  Mazarin,  not  forgetting  his  dying  sister's 
charge  regarding  Marie  and  Hortense  Mancini,  or,  still 
more  anxious  to  attach  himself  to  the  King  by  all  the  links 
possible,  hoped  that  one  of  these  two  young  girls  would 
interest  him,  as  Olympia  (Mancini)  had  done.  The  far- 
sighted  minister  was  not  mistaken:  he  counted  upon  Hor- 
tense; but,  to  his  great  astonishment,  it  was  Marie  who 
accomplished  the  work  of  his  dreams. 

She  was  a  year  or  so  younger  than  the  King,  and  was  ugly 

38 


MARIE  DE  MANCINI. 


MARIE    DE    MANCINI  39 

rather  than  beautiful.  Her  waist,  which  was  large,  might, 
it  was  true,  become  sightly  in  time;  but  at  the  present 
moment  she  was  so  thin,  and  her  arms  and  her  neck  so  long, 
and  so  lean,  that  her  enormous  waist  was  rather  a  defect  than 
a  mark  of  beauty.  She  was  brown,  or  yellow,  rather;  her 
large,  black  eyes  somewhat  hard,  and  her  mouth,  garnished, 
it  is  true,  with  magnificent  teeth,  was  large  and  flat.  The 
result  was  that  at  first  the  hopes  of  the  minister  were  frus- 
trated, and  the  King  scarcely  paid  any  attention  to  either 
Marie  or  her  sister. 

But,  if  he  did  not  notice  the  young  girl,  this  was  not  the 
case  with  her.  The  sight  of  the  handsome  and  majestic 
King  had  created  a  sentiment  in  her  which  was  not  merely 
that  of  respect :  "  For,"  says  her  sister  in  Saint-Real's 
Memoires,  "  she  was  the  only  one  not  intimidated  by  the 
majestic  port  of  the  King,  and  although  she  was  so  amorous 
of  him,  she  preserved  the  greatest  liberty  in  talking  to  him." 

This  passion,  encouraged  by  Mazarin,  began  to  be  noticed, 
and  it  reached  the  King's  ears;  at  first  he  laughed  at  it,  but 
gradually  his  glances  fell  upon  her  whom  he  had  inspired :  it 
is  always  sweet  and  flattering  to  be  loved.  Louis  XIV. 
recognised  the  sentiment  that  Marie  de  Mancini  had  vowed 
so  openly;  then,  as  he  saw  more  of  her,  he  discovered  that  if 
Nature  had  somewhat  neglected  her  face,  she  had,  on. the 
other  hand,  richly  endowed  her  mind.  Marie  de  Mancini 
was  charming,  and  could  chatter  and  talk  delightfully;  and, 
finally,  she  seemed  to  love  Louis  XIV.  with  all  the  qualities 
of  her  heart  and  mind. 

However,  at  this  very  moment,  the  Cardinal  was  actively 


40  MARIE    DE    MANCINI 

engaged  with  an  event  that  was  destined  to  crush  this  bud- 
ding love  for  his  niece,  which  he  had  himself  encouraged: 
this  was  the  King's  marriage. 

The  entire  winter  was  spent  in  fetes  and  masquerades. 
During  these  masquerades,  the  King  never  left  Marie  de 
Mancini,  with  whom  he  was  now  really  in  love.  But  this 
time  the  Queen  busied  herself  about  it. 

Indeed,  the  King  never  went  anywhere  without  Marie  de 
Mancini,  or,  rather,  he  never  went  anywhere  unless  she  was 
there.  The  eyes  of  the  Queen  never  beheld  him  without 
Mademoiselle  de  Mancini,  talking  to  her  in  a  low  voice,  and 
laughing  loudly,  without  being  in  the  least  restrained  for  the 
sake  of  appearances;  therefore,  the  Queen  reproached  him 
about  her,  as  she  had  done  about  Mademoiselle  d'Argen- 
court. 

Unfortunately,  the  King  was  a  year  older  now;  and  he 
was  much  more  than  a  year  over  age ;  he  replied  sharply  that 
they  had  held  him  a  prisoner  when  he  was  a  child,  but  he  was 
free  now  that  he  was  a  man. 

Then  the  Queen  began  to  suspect  something, — that  it  was 
Mazarin  who  had  an  underhand  hope  to  wed  his  niece  to 
the  King.  She  forgot  her  own  connection  with  the  Cardinal, 
and  trembled  at  that  audacious  idea. 

However,  for  some  time  the  Cardinal  had  realised  that 
the  power  would  pass  insensibly  from  the  hands  of  the  Queen 
into  those  of  the  King,  and  all  his  calculations  had  been 
directed  towards  getting  into  the  good  graces  of  the  King, 
for  it  mattered  little  now  if  the  Queen  thought  ill  of  him. 
Therefore,  he  did  not  check  his  feelings,  and  said  openly: 


MARIE    DE    MANCINI  41 

"  That  she  had  no  mind ;  that  she  had  shown  more  aiffection 
for  the  House  of  Austria  than  for  the  one  which  she  had 
entered;  that  the  King,  her  husband,  had  had  good  reasons 
to  hate  her,  and  to  distrust  her;  that  she  was  religious  only 
from  necessity;  and,  finally,  that  she  only  cared  about  good 
cheer,  and  did  not  trouble  herself  about  anything  else." 

All  these  attacks  of  the  Cardinal  came  back  to  the  Queen, 
and  at  this  particular  moment  greatly  alarmed  her;  there- 
fore, she  secretly  assembled  her  cleverest  councillors  of  state, 
and  the  most  celebrated  lawyers  in  Parliament,  to  learn  if, 
in  case  her  son  married  without  her  consent,  the  marriage 
would  be  valid.  All  said  "  no  "  with  one  voice,  and  advised 
the  Queen  to  protest  at  once  against  that  intended  marriage. 
Brienne,  who  had  always  enjoyed  Anne  of  Austria's  con- 
fidence, was  charged  to  have  this  important  act  drawn  up, 
and  he  promised  to  have  it  registered  privately  in  Parliament, 
in  case  the  King  secretly  married  the  Cardinal's  niece. 

The  Queen  never  opened  her  mouth  regarding  these  fears 
to  the  Minister.  She  was,  therefore,  greatly  astonished 
when  one  day  he  approached  the  question  himself,  being  the 
first  to  speak  of  the  pretended  marriage  to  the  Queen,  laugh- 
ing at  the  folly  of  his  niece,  who  could  believe  the  promises 
made  to  her  by  a  King  of  twenty  years,  but  laughing  in  such 
a  way  that  it  was  easy  to  see  that  his  pleasantry  was  more  of 
an  overture  than  a  reproach.  The  Queen  instantly  seized 
upon  the  occasion,  and  after  having  listened  coldly  to  the 
Cardinal :  "  Monsieur,"  she  said,  "  I  cannot  believe  that 
the  King  would  be  capable  of  such  baseness ;  but  if  it  is  pos- 
sible that  he  has  had  such  a  thought,  I  assure  you  that  all 


42  MARIE     DE    MANCINI 

France  will  revolt  against  him,  and  against  you;  and  that, 
as  for  me,  I  will  place  myself  at  the  head  of  this  revolt,  and 
draw  my  second  son  into  it." 

Several  days  afterwards  the  protestation  was  prepared  and 
shown  to  the  Cardinal.  It  was  then  that  Mazarin,  renounc- 
ing his  hopes,  renewed  his  overtures  to  Spain,  while  he 
seemed  to  continue  his  negotiations  with  Savoy.  In  reality, 
both  of  these  marriages  were  advantageous:  the  alliance  with 
Savoy  was  a  means  of  continuing  the  war;  the  alliance  with 
Spain  was  a  means  of  securing  peace. 

Spring  brought  back  the  preoccupations  of  war.  Dun- 
kerque  was  taken  on  the  14th  of  June;  but  the  joy  consequent 
upon  that  event  was  soon  tempered  by  an  accident  to  the 
King.  A  low  fever,  that  lasted  till  the  22d,  made  such 
progress  that  his  life  was  despaired  of.  At  last,  the 
physicians  announced  that  he  was  out  of  danger,  and  there 
was  great  joy  at  Court.  The  King  returned  to  Compiegne, 
then  to  Fontainebleau,  and  then  to  Paris. 

This  illness  had  only  strengthened  the  love  of  Louis  XIV. 
for  Marie  de  Mancini;  for  during  his  illness,  the  young  girl 
had  shown  every  sign  of  devotion  within  her  power ;  but  the 
Queen  hastened,  what  had  been  called,  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  year,  the  journey  to  Lyons. 

The  journey  to  Lyons  had  a  visible  purpose  and  a  hidden 
purpose.  The  visible  purpose  was  to  bring  the  King  into 
relation  with  Marguerite  of  Savoy,  who  always  had  a  possi- 
ble chance  of  being  Queen  of  France ;  the  hidden  purpose  was 
to  force  Spain  and  its  King  to  give  the  Infanta  to  France. 
The  departure  was  arranged  for  the  22d  of  October. 


MARIE     DE    MANCINI  43 

What  was  strange  regarding  the  trip  was  that  Marie  de 
Mancini  went  along,  the  King  having  refused  to  be 
separated  from  her;  or,  perhaps,  having  told  her  that  the 
projected  alliance  with  the  Princess  Marguerite  was  not 
really  serious. 

On  learning  that  the  King  of  France  was  going  to  marry 
the  Princess  Marguerite,  Philip  IV.  exclaimed :  "  Esto  no 
puede  serj  y  no  sera/ ^^  ("That  must  not,  and  shall  not, 
be!")  Consequently,  Philip  IV.  called  Antonio  Pimen- 
telli,  and  sent  him  hurriedly  to  France. 

Now,  while  the  King,  the  Queen,  the  Cardinal,  Madame 
de  Savoie,  and  the  two  princesses  entered  through  one  door^ 
Don  Antonio  Pimentelli  entered  through  the  other,  and 
demanded  an  audience  of  Mazarin  the  same  evening.  On 
seeing  him,  Mazarin,  who  had  known  him  for  a  long  time, 
said : 

"  Are  you  chased  out  of  Spain  by  the  King,  your  master, 
or  have  you  come  to  offer  us  the  Infanta?  " 

"  I  come  to  offer  you  the  Infanta,  Monsieur,"  said  the 
ambassador,  "  and  here  are  my  full  powers  to  treat  with  you 
regarding  this  marriage."  With  these  words,  he  presented 
a  letter  from  Philip  IV.  to  the  minister. 

It  was  what  Mazarin  had  hoped  for,  and  dreamed  of ;  he 
instantly  ran  to  the  Queen,  and  as  he  found  her  alone, 
thoughtful,  and  melancholy: 

"  Good  news,  Madame,"  he  said,  laughing,  "  good  news." 

"  What  is  it?  "  asked  the  Queen,  "  will  there  be  peace?  " 

"  Better  than  that,  Madame,"  replied  the  Minister,  "  for 
I  bring  Your  Majesty  both  peace  and  the  Infanta." 


44  MARIE     DE    MANCINI 

But  Mazarin  had  a  great  task  to  perform.  For  a  long 
time,  he  had  been  accused  by  everybody,  including  the  Queen, 
as  we  have  said,  of  w^ishing  to  place  his  niece  upon  the  throne 
of  France.  Perhaps  this  was  true,  for  the  minister  had 
realised  the  slight  advantage  a  union  with  Savoy  or  Portugal 
would  be  to  France;  but  everything  was  changed  since  the 
visit  of  Don  Pimentelli  had  materialised  the  hopes  that  the 
Cardinal  had  nourished  with  regard  to  Spain. 

He  resolved  to  attack  vigorously  this  love  which  the  King 
manifested,  under  all  circumstances,  for  Marie  de  Mancinl. 
and  to  tear  from  the  hearts  of  the  two  lovers,  if  not  passion, 
at  least  hope. 

It  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  do :  the  empire  that  Marie  had 
taken  was  still  greater  in  that  she  owed  it,  not  to  her  beauty, 
but  to  her  very  superior  Intelligence.  Louis  was,  in  truth, 
as  amorous  of  her  mind  as  of  her  person.  One  may  believe, 
therefore,  that  his  Minister  received  a  rude  welcome  when 
he  spoke  of  a  separation;  but  the  Minister  would  not  allow 
himself  to  be  intimidated,  and  remained  firm.  Louis  XIV. 
then  tried  to  bribe  him  by  offering  to  marry  his  niece,  but 
this  offer  was  not  accepted. 

"  Sire,"  replied  the  Cardinal,  "  if  Your  Majesty  were 
capable  of  such  a  weakness,  I  would  rather  stab  my  niece 
with  my  own  hands,  than  to  favour  such  a  marriage,  which 
would  be  no  less  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  Crown  than 
prejudicial  to  France;  and  if  Your  Majesty  persists  in  this 
idea,  I  declare  to  you  that  I  will  board  a  ship  with  my  nieces, 
and  carry  them  across  the  seas." 

The  day  for  the  departure  of  the  young  girls  was  fixed 


MARIE    DE    MANCINI  45 

for  the  22d  of  June.  On  the  evening  before,  the  sad  and 
dejected  King  went  to  see  the  Queen.  The  Queen  taking  a 
torch  from  the  table,  stepped  with  him  into  the  cabinet  des 
bains.  They  remained  there  nearly  an  hour;  the  King  came 
out  first,  his  eyes  all  red  with  tears;  and  then  the  Queen, 
much  affected  herself,  who  said  to  Madame  de  Motteville: 

"  The  King  has  my  pity ;  he  is  perfectly  tender  and  reason- 
able; but  I  have  told  him  that  I  am  sure  he  will  thank  me 
one  day  for  the  sorrow  I  caused  him." 

The  dreaded  morrow  arrived.  The  hour  of  farewell 
came  in  its  turn ;  the  carriage  that  was  to  take  the  three  sisters 
away  was  waiting.  Marie  de  Mancini  came  to  the  King, 
and  found  him  weeping. 

"Oh,  Sire,"  she  exclaimed,  "you  are  King!  You  weep 
and  I  go?" 

But  Louis  XIV.  did  not  reply  to  this  strong  and  concise 
appeal,  and  the  young  girl,  feeling  all  hope  vanish,  withdrew 
in  pride,  got  into  the  carriage  in  which  her  sisters,  Hortense 
and  Anne,  were  waiting,  and  left  for  Brouage,  which  was 
the  place  chosen  for  her  exile. 

The  King  followed,  accompanying  the  coach,  and  paused 
at  the  spot  where  the  coach  disappeared ;  then  he  returned  to 
the  Queen,  and  shortly  afterwards  left  for  Chantilly,  to 
bury  himself  in  solitude  with  his  memories  and  his  grief. 


ELIZABETH,  QUEEN  OF  ENGLAND 

(1533—1603) 

JOHN    RICHARD    GREEN 

NEVER  had  the  fortunes  of  England  sunk  to  a  lower 
ebb  than  at  the  moment  when  Elizabeth  mounted  the 
throne.  The  country  was  humiliated  by  defeat  and  brought  to 
the  verge  of  rebellion  by  the  bloodshed  and  misgovernment  of 
Mary's  reign.  The  old  social  discontent,  trampled  down  for 
a  time  by  the  horsemen  of  Somerset,  remained  a  menace  to 
public  order.  The  religious  strife  had  passed  beyond  hope 
of  reconciliation,  now  that  the  reformers  were  parted  from 
their  opponents  by  the  fires  of  Smithfield  and  the  party  of 
the  New  Learning  all  but  dissolved.  The  more  earnest 
Catholics  were  bound  helplessly  to  Rome.  The  temper  of 
the  Protestants,  burned  at  home  or  driven  into  exile  abroad, 
had  become  a  fiercer  thing,  and  the  Calvinistic  refugees  were 
pouring  back  from  Geneva  with  dreams  of  revolutionary 
change  in  Church  and  State.  England,  dragged  at  the  heels 
of  Philip  into  a  useless  and  ruinous  war,  was  left  without  an 
ally  save  Spain;  while  France,  mistress  of  Calais,  became 
mistress  of  the  Channel.  Not  only  was  Scotland  a  standing 
danger  in  the  north,  through  the  French  marriage  of  its 
Queen  Mary  Stuart  and  its  consequent  bondage  to  French 
policy;  but  Mary  Stuart  and  her  husband  now  assumed  the 

46 


ELIZABKTH,  QUEEN  OE  EN(n.AND. 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF    ENGLAND  47 

style  and  arms  of  English  sovereigns,  and  threatened  to  rouse 
every  Catholic  throughout  the  realm  against  Elizabeth's  title. 
In  presence  of  this  host  of  dangers  the  country  lay  helpless, 
without  army  or  fleet,  or  the  means  of  manning  one,  for  the 
treasury,  already  drained  by  the  waste  of  Edward's  reign, 
had  been  utterly  exhausted  by  Mary's  restoration  of  the 
Church-lands  in  possession  of  the  Crown,  and  by  the  cost  of 
her  war  with  France. 

England's  one  hope  lay  in  the  character  of  her  Queen. 
Elizabeth  was  now  in  her  twenty-fifth  year.  Personally 
she  had  more  than  her  mother's  beauty;  her  figure  was  com- 
manding, her  face  long  but  queenly  and  intelligent,  her 
eyes  quick  and  fine.  She  had  grown  up  amidst  the  liberal 
culture  of  Henry's  court  a  bold  horsewoman,  a  good  shot,  a 
graceful  dancer,  a  skilled  musician,  and  an  accomplished 
scholar.  She  studied  every  morning  the  Greek  Testament, 
and  followed  this  by  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles,  or  orations 
of  Demosthenes,  and  could  "  rub  up  her  rusty  Greek  "  at 
need  to  bandy  pedantry  with  a  Vice-Chancellor.  But  she 
was  far  from  being  a  mere  pedant.  The  new  literature 
which  was  springing  up  around  her  found  constant  welcome 
in  her  court.  She  spoke  Italian  and  French  as  fluently  as  her 
mother-tongue.  She  was  familiar  with  Ariosto  and  Tasso. 
Even  amidst  the  affectation  and  love  of  anagrams  and  puer- 
ilities which  sullied  her  later  years,  she  listened  with  delight 
to  the  "  Faery  Queen,"  and  found  a  smile  for  "Master  Spen- 
ser "  when  he  appeared  in  her  presence.  Her  moral  temper 
recalled  in  its  strange  contrasts  the  mixed  blood  within  her 
veins.     She  was  at  once  the  daughter  of  Henry  and  of  Anne 


48  ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF    ENGLAND 

Boleyn.  From  her  father  she  inherited  her  frank  and  hearty 
address,  her  love  of  popularity  and  of  free  intercourse  with 
the  people,  her  dauntless  courage  and  her  amazing  self-con- 
fidence. Her  harsh,  manlike  voice,  her  impetuous  will,  her 
pride,  her  furious  outbursts  of  anger  came  to  her  with  her 
Tudor  blood.  She  rated  great  nobles  as  if  they  were 
schoolboys;  she  met  the  insolence  of  Essex  with  a  box  on  the 
ear ;  she  would  break  now  and  then  into  the  gravest  delibera- 
tions to  swear  at  her  ministers  like  a  fishwife.  But  strangely 
in  contrast  with  the  violent  outlines  of  her  Tudor  temper 
stood  the  sensuous,  self-indulgent  nature  she  derived  from 
Anne  Boleyn.  Splendour  and  pleasure  were  with  Elizabeth 
the  very  air  she  breathed.  Her  delight  was  to  move  in  per- 
petual progresses  from  castle  to  castle  through  a  series  of 
gorgeous  pageants,  fanciful  and  extravagant  as  a  caliph's 
dream.  She  loved  gaiety  and  laughter  and  wit.  A  happy 
retort  or  a  finished  compliment  never  failed  to  win  her 
favour.  She  hoarded  jewels.  Her  dresses  were  innumer- 
able. Her  vanity  remained,  even  to  old  age,  the  vanity  of 
a  coquette  in  her  teens.  No  adulation  was  too  fulsome  for 
her,  no  flattery  of  her  beauty  too  gross.  **  To  see  her  was 
heaven,"  Hatton  told  her,  "  the  lack  of  her  was  hell."  She 
would  play  with  her  rings  that  her  courtiers  might  note  the 
delicacy  of  her  hands;  or  dance  a  coranto  that  the  French 
ambassador,  hidden  dexterously  behind  a  curtain,  might 
report  her  sprightliness  to  his  master.  Her  levity,  her 
frivolous  laughter,  her  unwomanly  jests  gave  colour  to  a 
thousand  scandals.  Her  character,  in  fact,  like  her  portraits, 
was  utterly  without  shade.     Of  womanly  reserve  or  self- 


J 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND  49 

restraint  she  knew  nothing.  No  instinct  of  delicacy  veiled 
the  voluptuous  temper  which  had  broken  out  in  the  romps 
of  her  girlhood  and  showed  itself  almost  ostentatiously 
throughout  her  later  life.  Personal  beauty  in  a  man  was 
a  sure  passport  to  her  liking.  She  patted  handsome  young 
squires  on  the  neck  when  they  knelt  to  kiss  her  hand,  and 
fondled  her  "sweet  Robin,"  Lord  Leicester,  in  the  face  of 
the  court. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  the  statesmen  whom  she  outwitted 
held  Elizabeth  almost  to  the  last  to  be  little  more  than  a 
frivolous  woman,  or  that  Philip  of  Spain  wondered  how  "  a 
wanton  "  could  hold  in  check  the  policy  of  the  Escurial. 
But  the  Elizabeth  whom  they  saw  was  far  from  being  all  of 
Elizabeth.  The  wilfulness  of  Henry,  the  triviality  of  Anne 
Boleyn  played  over  the  surface  of  a  nature  hard  as  steel,  a 
temper  purely  intellectual,  the  very  type  of  reason  untouched 
by  imagination  or  passion.  Luxurious  and  pleasure-loving 
as  she  seemed,  Elizabeth  lived  simply  and  frugally,  and  she 
worked  hard.  Her  vanity  and  caprice  had  no  weight  what- 
ever with  her  in  state  affairs.  The  coquette  of  the  presence- 
chamber  became  the  coolest  and  hardest  of  politicians  at  the 
council-board.  Fresh  from  the  flattery  of  her  courtiers,  she 
would  tolerate  no  flattery  in  the  closet;  she  was  herself  plain 
and  downright  of  speech  with  her  counsellors,  and  she  looked 
for  a  corresponding  plainness  of  speech  in  return.  If  any 
trace  of  her  sex  lingered  in  her  actual  statesmanship,  it  was 
seen  in  the  simplicity  and  tenacity  of  purpose  that  often 
underlies  a  woman's  fluctuations  of  feeling.  It  was  this  in 
part  which  gave  her  her  marked  superiority  over  the  states- 


50  ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF    ENGLAND 

men  of  her  time.  No  nobler  group  of  ministers  ever  gath- 
ered round  a  council-board  than  those  who  gathered  round 
the  council-board  of  Elizabeth.  But  she  was  the  instrument 
of  none.  She  listened,  she  weighed,  she  used  or  put  by  the 
counsels  of  each  in  turn,  but  her  policy  as  a  whole  was  her 
own.  It  was  a  policy,  not  of  genius,  but  of  good  sense. 
Her  aims  were  simple  and  obvious:  to  preserve  her  throne, 
to  keep  England  out  of  war,  to  restore  civil  and  religious 
order.  Something  of  womanly  caution  and  timidity  perhaps 
backed  the  passionless  indifference  with  which  she  set  aside 
the  larger  schemes  of  ambition  which  were  ever  opening 
before  her  eyes.  She  was  resolute  in  her  refusal  of  the  Low 
Countries.  She  rejected  with  a  laugh  the  offers  of  the 
Protestants  to  make  her  "  head  of  the  religion  "  and  "  mis- 
tress of  the  seas."  But  her  amazing  success  in  the  end  sprang 
mainly  from  this  wise  limitation  of  her  aims.  She  ha^  a 
finer  sense  than  any  of  her  counsellors  of  her  real  resources; 
she  knew  instinctively  how  far  she  could  go,  and  what  she 
could  do.  Her  cold,  critical  intellect  was  never  swayed  by 
enthusiasm,  or  by  panic,  either  to  exaggerate  or  to  under- 
estimate her  risks  or  her  power. 

Of  political  wisdom,  indeed,  in  its  larger  and  more  gener- 
ous sense,  Elizabeth  had  little  or  none ;  but  her  political  tact 
was  unerring.  She  seldom  saw  her  course  at  a  glance,  but 
she  played  with  a  hundred  courses,  fitfully  and  discursively, 
as  a  musician  runs  his  fingers  over  the  key-board,  till  she  hit 
suddenly  upon  the  right  one.  Her  nature  was  essentially  prac- 
tical and  of  the  present.  She  distrusted  a  plan  in  fact  just  in 
proportion  to  its  speculative  range,  or  its  out-look  into  the 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND  51 

future.  Her  notion  of  statesmanship  lay  in  watching  how 
things  turned  out  around  her,  and  in  seizing  the  moment  for 
making  the  best  of  them.  A  policy  of  this  limited,  practical, 
tentative  order  was  not  only  best  suited  to  the  England  of 
her  day,  to  its  small  resources,  and  the  transitional  character 
of  its  religious  and  political  belief,  but  it  was  one  eminently 
suited  to  Elizabeth's  peculiar  powers.  It  was  a  policy  of 
detail,  and  in  details  her  wonderful  readiness  and  ingenuity 
found  scope  for  their  exercise.  "  No  War,  my  lords,"  the 
Queen  used  to  cry  imperiously  at  the  council-board,  "  No 
War ! "  but  her  hatred  of  war  sprang  less  from  her  aversion 
to  blood  or  to  expense,  real  as  was  her  aversion  to  both,  than 
from  the  fact  that  peace  left  the  field  open  to  the  diplomatic 
manoeuvres  and  intrigues  in  which  she  excelled.  Her  delight 
in  the  consciousness  of  her  ingenuity  broke  out  in  a  thousand 
puckish  freaks,  freaks  in  which  one  can  hardly  see  any  pur- 
pose beyond  the  purpose  of  sheer  mystification.  She  revelled 
in  "  bye-ways  "  and  "  crooked  ways."  She  played  with  grave 
cabinets  as  a  cat  plays  with  a  mouse,  and  with  much  of  the 
same  feline  delight  in  the  mere  embarrassment  of  her  victims. 
When  she  was  weary  of  mystifying  foreign  statesmen  she 
turned  to  find  fresh  sport  in  mystifying  her  own  ministers. 
Had  Elizabeth  written  the  story  of  her  reign  she  would  have 
prided  herself,  not  on  the  triumph  of  England  or  the  ruin  of 
Spain,  but  on  the  skill  with  which  she  had  hoodwinked  and 
outwitted  every  statesman  in  Europe,  during  fifty  years. 
Nor  was  her  trickery  without  political  value.  Ignoble,  inex- 
pressibly wearisome  as  the  Queen's  diplomacy  seems  to  us 
now,  tracing  It  as  we  do  through  a  thousand  despatches,  It 


52  ELIZABETH.    QUEEN     OF    ENGLAND 

succeeded  in  its  main  end.  It  gained  time,  and  every  year 
that  was  gained  doubled  Elizabeth's  strength.  Nothing  is 
more  revolting  in  the  Queen,  but  nothing  is  more  character- 
istic, than  her  shameless  mendacity.  It  w^as  an  age  of 
political  lying,  but  in  the  profusion  and  recklessness  of  her 
lies  Elizabeth  stood  vrithout  a  peer  in  Christendom.  A 
falsehood  w^as  to  her  simply  an  intellectual  means  of  meeting 
a  difficulty;  and  the  ease  v^^ith  w^hich  she  asserted  or  denied 
w^hatever  suited  her  purpose  was  only  equalled  by  the  cynical 
indifference  with  which  she  met  the  exposure  of  her  lies  as 
soon  as  their  purpose  was  answered.  The  same  purely  intel- 
lectual view  of  things  showed  itself  in  the  dexterous  use  she 
made  of  her  very  faults.  Her  levity  carried  her  gaily  over 
moments  of  detection  and  embarrassment  where  better 
women  would  have  died  of  shame.  She  screened  her  tenta- 
tive and  hesitating  statesmanship  under  the  natural  timidity 
and  vacillation  of  her  sex.  She  turned  her  very  luxury  and 
sports  to  good  account.  There  were  moments  of  grave 
danger  in  her  reign  when  the  country  remained  indifferent 
to  its  perils,  as  it  saw  the  Queen  give  her  days  to  hawking 
and  hunting,  and  her  nights  to  dancing  and  plays.  Her 
vanity  and  affectation,  her  womanly  fickleness  and  caprice,  all 
had  their  part  in  the  diplomatic  comedies  she  played  with  the 
successive  candidates  for  her  hand.  If  political  necessities 
made  her  life  a  lonely  one,  she  had  at  any  rate  the  satisfac- 
tion of  averting  war  and  conspiracies  by  love  sonnets  and 
romantic  interviews,  or  of  gaining  a  year  of  tranquillity  by 
the  dexterous  spinning  out  of  a  flirtation. 

If  in  loftiness  of  aim  her  temper  fell  below  many  of  the 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND  53 

tempers  of  her  time,  in  the  breadth  of  its  range,  in  the 
universality  of  its  sympathy  it  stood  far  above  them  all. 
Elizabeth  could  talk  poetry  with  Spenser,  and  philosophy 
with  Bruno;  she  could  discuss  Euphuism  with  Lyly,  and 
enjoy  the  chivalry  of  Essex;  she  could  turn  from  talk  of  the 
last  fashions  to  pore  with  Cecil  over  despatches  and  treasury 
books;  she  could  pass  from  tracking  traitors  with  Walsing- 
ham  to  settle  points  of  doctrine  with  Parker,  or  to  calculate 
with  Frobisher  the  chances  of  a  northwest  passage  to  the 
Indies.  The  versatility  and  many-sidedness  of  her  mind 
enabled  her  to  understand  every  phase  of  the  intellectual 
movement  of  her  day,  and  to  fix  by  a  sort  of  instinct  on  its 
higher  representatives.  But  the  greatness  of  the  Queen  rests 
above  all  on  her  power  over  her  people.  We  have  had 
grander  and  nobler  rulers,  but  none  so  popular  as  Elizabeth. 
The  passion  of  love,  of  loyalty,  of  admiration  which  finds 
its  most  perfect  expression  in  the  "  Faery  Queen,"  throbbed 
as  intensely  through  the  veins  of  her  meanest  subjects.  To 
England,  during  her  reign  of  half  a  century,  she  was  a  virgin 
and  a  Protestant  Queen;  and  her  immorality,  her  absolute 
want  of  religious  enthusiasm,  failed  utterly  to  blur  the 
brightness  of  the  national  ideal.  Her  worst  acts  broke  fruit- 
lessly against  the  general  devotion.  A  Puritan,  whose  hand 
she  cut  off  in  a  freak  of  tyrannous  resentment,  waved  his  hat 
with  the  hand  that  was  left,  and  shouted  "  God  save  Queen 
Elizabeth !  "  Of  her  faults,  indeed,  England  beyond  the 
circle  of  her  court  knew  little  or  nothing.  The  shiftings  of 
her  diplomacy  were  never  seen  outside  the  royal  closet.  The 
nation  at  large  could  only  judge  her  foreign  policy  by  its 


54          ELIZABETH,    QUEEN    OF    ENGLAND 

main  outlines,  by  its  temperance  and  good  sense,  and  above 
all  by  its  success.  But  every  Englishman  was  able  to  judge 
Elizabeth  in  her  rule  at  home,  in  her  love  of  peace,  her 
instinct  of  order,  the  firmness  and  moderation  of  her  govern- 
ment, the  judicious  spirit  of  conciliation  and  compromise 
among  warring  factions  which  gave  the  country  an  unex- 
ampled tranquillity  at  a  time  when  almost  every  other 
country  in  Europe  was  torn  with  civil  war.  Every  sign  of 
the  growing  prosperity,  the  sight  of  London  as  it  became  the 
mart  of  the  world,  of  stately  mansions  as  they  rose  on  every 
manor,  told,  and  justly  told,  in  Elizabeth's  favour.  In  one 
act  of  her  civil  administration  she  showed  the  boldness  and 
originality  of  a  great  ruler ;  for  the  opening  of  her  reign  saw 
her  face  the  social  difficulty  which  had  so  long  impeded 
English  progress,  by  the  issue  of  a  commission  of  inquiry 
which  ended  in  the  solution  of  the  problem  by  the  system  of 
poor-laws.  She  lent  a  ready  patronage  to  the  new  com- 
merce; she  considered  its  extension  and  protection  as  a  part 
of  public  policy,  and  her  statue  in  the  centre  of  the  London 
Exchange  was  a  tribute  on  the  part  of  the  merchant  class  to 
the  interest  with  which  she  watched  and  shared  personally  in 
its  enterprises.  Her  thrift  won  a  general  gratitude.  The 
memories  of  the  Terror  and  of  the  Martyrs  threw  into  bright 
relief  the  aversion  from  bloodshed  which  was  conspicuous  in 
her  earlier  reign,  and  never  wholly  wanting  through  its 
fiercer  close.  Above  all  there  was  a  general  confidence  in 
her  instinctive  knowledge  of  the  national  temper.  Her 
finger  was  always  on  the  public  pulse.  She  knew  exactly 
when  she  could  resist  the  feeling  of  her  people,  and  when  she 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND  55 

must  give  way  before  the  new  sentiment  of  freedom  which 
her  policy  unconsciously  fostered.  But  when  she  retreated, 
her  defeat  had  all  the  grace  of  victory;  and  the  frankness 
and  unreserve  of  her  surrender  won  back  at  once  the  love 
that  her  resistance  had  lost.  Her  attitude  at  home,  in  fact, 
was  that  of  a  woman  whose  pride  in  the  well-being  of  her 
subjects,  and  whose  longing  for  their  favour,  was  the  one 
warm  touch  in  the  coldness  of  her  natural  temper.  If  Eliza- 
beth could  be  said  to  love  anything,  she  loved  England. 
"  Nothing,"  she  said  to  her  first  Parliament  in  words  of 
unwonted  fire,  "  nothing,  no  worldly  thing  under  the  sun, 
is  so  dear  to  me  as  the  love  and  good-will  of  my  subjects." 
And  the  love  and  good-will  which  were  so  dear  to  her  she 
fully  won. 

She  clung  perhaps  to  her  popularity  the  more  passionately 
that  it  hid  in  some  measure  from  her  the  terrible  loneliness 
of  her  life.  She  was  the  last  of  the  Tudors,  the  last  of 
Henry*s  children;  and  her  nearest  relatives  were  Mary 
Stuart  and  the  House  of  Suffolk,  one  the  avowed,  the  other 
the  secret  claimant  of  her  throne.  Among  her  mother's 
kindred  she  found  but  a  single  cousin.  Whatever  womanly 
tenderness  she  had,  wrapt  itself  around  Leicester ;  but  a  mar- 
riage with  Leicester  was  Impossible,  and  every  other  union, 
could  she  even  have  bent  to  one,  was  denied  to  her  by  the 
political  difficulties  of  her  position.  The  one  cry  of  bitter- 
ness which  burst  from  Elizabeth  revealed  her  terrible  sense 
of  the  solitude  of  her  life.  "  The  Queen  of  Scots,"  she 
cried  at  the  birth  of  James,  "  has  a  fair  son,  and  I  am  but  a 
barren    stock."     But   the   loneliness   of   her   position    only 


56  ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND 

reflected  the  loneliness  of  her  nature.  She  stood  utterly 
apart  from  the  world  around  her,  sometimes  above  it, 
sometimes  below  it,  but  never  of  it.  It  was  only  on  its  intel- 
lectual side  that  Elizabeth  touched  the  England  of  her  day. 
All  its  moral  aspects  were  simply  dead  to  her.  It  was  a  time 
when  men  were  being  lifted  into  nobleness  by  the  new  moral 
energy  which  seemed  suddenly  to  pulse  through  the  whole 
people,  when  honour  and  enthusiasm  took  colours  of  poetic 
beauty,  and  religion  became  a  chivalry.  But  the  finer  senti- 
ments of  the  men  around  her  touched  Elizabeth  simply  as 
the  fair  tints  of  a  picture  would  have  touched  her.  She  made 
her  market  with  equal  indifference  out  of  the  heroism  of 
William  of  Orange  or  the  bigotry  of  Philip.  The  noblest 
aims  and  lives  were  only  counters  on  her  board.  She  was 
the  one  soul  in  her  realm  whom  the  news  of  St.  Bartholomew 
stirred  to  no  thirst  for  vengeance;  and  while  England  was 
thrilling  with  its  triumph  over  the  Armada,  its  Queen  was 
coolly  grumbling  over  the  cost,  and  making  her  profit  out  of 
the  spoiled  provisions  she  had  ordered  for  the  fleet  that  saved 
her.  To  the  voice  of  gratitude,  indeed,  she  was  for  the  most 
part  deaf.  She  accepted  services  such  as  were  never  rendered 
to  any  other  English  sovereign  without  a  thought  of  return. 
Walsingham  spent  his  fortune  in  saving  her  life  and  her 
throne,  and  she  left  him  to  die  a  beggar.  But,  as  if  by  a 
strange  irony,  it  was  to  this  very  want  of  sympathy  that  she 
owed  some  of  the  grander  features  of  her  character.  If  she 
was  without  love  she  was  without  hate.  She  cherished  no 
petty  resentments;  she  never  stooped  to  envy  or  suspicion  of 
the  men  who  served  her.     She  was  indifferent  to  abuse.    Her 


ELIZABETH,    QUEEN     OF    ENGLAND  57 

good-humour  was  never  ruffled  by  the  charges  of  wantonness 
and  cruelty  with  which  the  Jesuits  filled  every  Court  in 
Europe.  She  was  insensible  to  fear.  Her  life  became  at 
last  the  mark  for  assassin  after  assassin,  but  the  thought  of 
peril  was  the  one  hardest  to  bring  home  to  her.  Even  when 
the  Catholic  plots  broke  out  in  her  very  household  she  would 
listen  to  no  proposals  for  the  removal  of  Catholics  from  her 
court. 

It  was  this  moral  isolation  which  told  so  strangely  both 
for  good  and  for  evil  on  her  policy  towards  the  Church. 
The  young  Queen  was  not  without  a  sense  of  religion.  But 
she  was  almost  wholly  destitute  of  spiritual  emotion,  or  of 
any  consciousness  of  the  vast  questions  with  which  theology 
strove  to  deal.  While  the  world  around  her  was  being 
swayed  more  and  more  by  theological  beliefs  and  contro- 
versies, Elizabeth  was  absolutely  untouched  by  them.  She 
was  a  child  of  the  Italian  Renascence,  rather  than  of  the  New 
Learning  of  Colet  or  Erasmus,  and  her  attitude  towards  the 
enthusiasm  of  her  time  was  that  of  Lorenzo  de*  Medici 
towards  Savonarola.  Her  mind  was  unruffled  by  the  spirit- 
ual problems  which  were  vexing  the  minds  around  her;  to 
Elizabeth,  indeed,  they  were  not  only  unintelligible,  they 
were  a  little  ridiculous.  She  had  the  same  intellectual  con- 
tempt for  the  superstition  of  the  Romanist  as  for  the  bigotry 
of  the  Protestant.  While  she  ordered  Catholic  images  to 
be  flung  into  the  fire,  she  quizzed  the  Puritans  as  "  brethren 
in  Christ."  But  she  had  no  sort  of  religious  aversion  from 
either  Puritan  or  Papist.  The  Protestants  grumbled  at  the 
Catholic  nobles  whom  she  admitted  to  the  presence.     The 


58  ELIZABETH.     QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND 

Catholics  grumbled  at  the  Protestant  statesmen  who  she 
called  to  her  council-board.  But  to  Elizabeth  the  arrange- 
ment was  the  most  natural  thing  In  the  world.  She  looked 
at  theological  differences  in  a  purely  political  light.  She 
agreed  with  Henry  IV.  that  a  kingdom  was  well  worth 
a  mass.  It  seemed  an  obvious  thing  to  her  to  hold  out 
hopes  of  conversion  as  a  means  of  deceiving  Philip,  or  to 
gain  a  point  in  negotiation  by  restoring  the  crucifix  to  her 
chapel.  The  first  interest  in  her  own  mind  was  the  interest 
of  public  order,  and  she  never  could  understand  how  it  could 
fail  to  be  first  in  every  one's  mind. 

The  triumph  of  Mount  joy  flung  its  lustre  over  the  last 
days  of  Elizabeth,  but  no  outer  triumph  could  break  the 
gloom  which  gathered  round  the  dying  Queen.  Lonely  as 
she  had  always  been,  her  loneliness  deepened  as  she  drew 
towards  the  grave.  The  statesmen  and  warriors  of  her 
earlier  days  had  dropped  one  by  one  from  her  council-board ; 
and  their  successors  were  watching  her  last  moments,  and 
intriguing  for  favour  in  the  coming  reign.  Her  favourite, 
Lord  Essex,  was  led  into  an  insane  outbreak  of  revolt,  which 
brought  him  to  the  block.  The  old  splendour  of  her  court 
waned,  and  disappeared.  Only  officials  remained  about  her, 
"  the  other  of  the  Council  and  nobility  estrange  themselves 
by  all  occasions."  As  she  passed  along  in  her  progresses,  the 
people  whose  applause  she  courted  remained  cold  and  silent. 
The  temper  of  the  age,  in  fact,  was  changing,  and  isolating 
her  as  it  changed.  Her  own  England,  the  England  which 
had  grown  up  around  her,  serious,  moral,  prosaic,  shrank 
coldly  from  this  brilliant,  fanciful,  unscruplous  child  of  earth 


ELIZABETH,     QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND  59 

and  the  Renascence.  She  had  enjoyed  life  as  the  men  of  her 
day  enjoyed  it,  and  now  that  they  were  gone  she  clung  to  it 
with  a  fierce  tenacity.  She  hunted,  she  danced,  she  jested 
with  her  young  favourites,  she  coquetted,  and  scolded,  and 
frolicked  at  sixty-seven  as  she  had  done  at  thirty.  "  The 
Queen,"  wrote  a  courtier  a  few  months  before  her  death, 
"  was  never  so  gallant  these  many  years,  nor  so  set  upon 
jollity."  She  persisted,  in  spite  of  opposition,  in  her  gorgeous 
progresses  from  country-house  to  country-house.  She  clung 
to  business  as  of  old,  and  rated  in  her  usual  fashion  "  one 
who  minded  not  to  giving  up  some  matter  of  account."  But 
death  crept  on.  Her  face  became  haggard,  and  her  frame 
shrank  almost  to  a  skeleton.  At  last  her  taste  for  finery 
disappeared,  and  she  refused  to  change  her  dresses  for  a  week 
together.  A  strange  melancholy  settled  down  on  her:  "she 
held  in  her  hand,"  says  one  who  saw  her  in  her  last  days, 
"  a  golden  cup,  which  she  often  put  to  her  lips :  but  in  truth 
her  heart  seemed  too  full  to  need  more  filling."  Gradually 
her  mind  gave  way.  She  lost  her  memory,  the  violence  of 
her  temper  became  unbearable,  her  very  courage  seemed  to 
forsake  her.  She  called  for  a  sword  to  lie  constantly  beside 
her,  and  thrust  it  from  time  to  time  through  the  arras,  as 
if  she  heard  murderers  stirring  there.  Food  and  rest  became 
alike  distasteful.  She  sate  day  and  night  propped  up  with 
pillows  on  a  stool,  her  finger  on  her  lip,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
floor,  without  a  word.  If  she  once  broke  the  silence,  it  was 
with  a  flash  of  her  old  queenliness.  When  Robert  Cecil 
asserted  that  she  "  must  "  go  to  bed,  the  word  roused  her  like 
a  trumpet.    **  Must!  "  she  exclaimed;  "  is  must  a  word  to 


6o  ELIZABETH,     QUEEN     OF     ENGLAND 

be  addressed  to  princes?  Little  man,  little  man!  thy  father, 
if  he  had  been  alive,  durst  not  have  used  that  word."  Then, 
as  her  anger  spent  itself,  she  sank  into  her  old  dejection. 
"  Thou  art  so  presumptuous,"  she  said,  "  because  thou  know- 
est  I  shall  die."  She  rallied  once  more  when  the  ministers 
beside  her  bed  named  Lord  Beauchamp,  the  heir  to  the  Suf- 
folk claim,  as  a  possible  successor.  "  I  will  have  no  rogue's 
son,"  she  cried  hoarsely,  "  in  my  seat."  But  she  gave  no 
sign,  save  a  motion  of  the  head,  at  the  mention  of  the  King 
of  Scots.  She  was  in  fact  fast  becoming  insensible ;  and  early 
the  next  morning  the  life  of  Elizabeth,  a  life  so  great,  so 
strange  and  lonely  in  its  greatness,  passed  quietly  away. 


LA  MARQUISE  DE  MONTESPAN 

(1641—1707) 
ADOLPHE  DUPLESSIS 

RANCOISE-ATHENAIS  DE  ROCHECHOUART 
DE  MORTEMART,  Marquise  de  Montespan,  born 
in  1641,  was  the  second  daughter  of  Gabriel  de  Roche- 
chouart,  first  Due  de  Mortemart,  known  at  first  by  the 
name  of  Mademoiselle  de  Tonnay-Charente.  She  was  mar- 
ried in  1663  to  Henri-Louis  de  Pardaillan  de  Gondrin, 
Marquis  de  Montespan,  of  an  illustrious  family  of  Gascony, 
and  through  the  influence  of  Monsieur,  to  whom  he  was 
attached,  he  obtained  for  her  the  post  of  a  maid  of  honour 
to  the  Queen.  The  Marquise  de  Montespan  appeared  at 
Court  with  everything  that  was  necessary  to  attract  attention 
and  to  please.  To  the  most  overwhelming  beauty  was 
united  the  quickest,  most  delicate,  and  best  cultivated  of 
minds,  the  mind  that  was  inherited  like  the  personal  beauty 
in  her  family,  and  that  gave  rise  to  the  saying:  "  The 
Mortemart  wit  and  conversation" 

Entirely  absorbed  by  his  love  for  the  Duchesse  de  la 
Valliere,  Louis  XIV.  did  not  at  first  pay  any  attention  to 
Madame  de  Montespan;  but  when  the  latter  became 
associated  with  the  Duchess,  the  King,  meeting  her  often  in 
her  apartments  as  well  as  the  Queen's,  was  struck  by  her 

61 


62  LA    MARQUISE    DE     MONTESPAN 

piquant,  natural,  and  playful  conversation;  by  degrees  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  charmed  by  the  beautiful  Marquise, 
who  was  sarcastic  without  being  malicious,  a  delightful 
story-teller,  who  could  cleverly  mimic  those  at  whose  ex- 
pense she  wished  to  amuse  the  monarch. 

When  the  Marquise  perceived  that  the  power,  which  she 
had  not  at  first  desired,  over  the  mind  of  Louis  XIV.  was 
gradually  extending  to  his  heart,  she  took,  or  at  least  she 
is  said  to  have  taken,  measures,  which  dismiss  the  idea  that 
she  had  planned  to  inspire  the  Prince  with  a  guilty  passion. 
She  informed  her  husband  of  the  King's  love  and  earnestly 
begged  him  to  take  her  to  their  country  estates,  so  as  to 
give  that  young  and  still  weak  flame  time  to  cool.  Those 
who  pass  by  this  fact  admit  that  the  Marquis  de  Montespan 
could  have  removed  his  wife  without  any  opposition  from 
the  King,  but  that  he  hoped  to  derive  from  this  favour 
advantages,  which,  after  all,  escaped  him  and  occasioned 
his  spite  and  passion.  He  behaved  himself  thereafter  in 
public  in  such  a  scandalous  manner  with  regard  to  Madame 
de  Montespan  that  he  drew  upon  himself  the  order  to  go 
and  live  on  his  estates  until  his  death.  At  the  period  that 
he  treated  his  wife  so  imprudently,  she  was  still  virtuous; 
and  this  harsh  conduct  doubtless  contributed  to  her  fall. 
It  was  in  1670,  when  the  Court  accompanied  to  the 
frontier  Madame,  who  was  charged  with  the  negotiations 
with  her  brother,  Charles  II.,  that  Madame  de  Montespan's 
favour  burst  forth.  She  made  part  of  the  journey  in  the 
coach  of  the  King  and  Queen;  and,  when  she  got  into  her 
own,  four  body-guards  stood  at  the  curtains. 


LA  MARQUISE  DE  MONTESPAN. 


LA    MARQUISE    DE    MONTESPAN  63 

Louis  XIV  repeated  for  her  children  what  he  had  done 
for  those  of  Madame  de  la  Valllere.  The  eldest,  the  Due 
du  Maine,  was  legitimated  in  1673  by  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment>  in  which  there  was  no  mention  of  the  child's  mother. 
The  others  were  legitimated  successively  and  these  children 
obtained  great  wealth  at  a  later  period. 

The  empire  that  the  proud  mistress  held  over  the  King's 
heart  soon  made  hex  desire  to  obtain  Influence  and  authority 
in  political  affairs.  The  favourite  whom  she  succeeded  had 
had  the  wisdom  not  to  desire  this ;  but  the  difference  between 
the  character  and  passion  of  the  two  mistresses  was  very 
great.  Madame  de  Montespan's  ambition  was  satisfied: 
she  had  so  many  ways  of  influencing  the  King  that  the 
ministers  and  courtiers  vied  with  each  other  in  yielding  to 
her.  Louis  XIV.  himself,  deceived  by  the  playfulness  and 
apparent  heedlessness  of  the  Marquise,  exhibited  her  to  his 
ministers  as  a  child;  and  this  child  learned  all  the  State 
secrets.  They  even  asked,  and  more  than  once  they  followed 
her  advice.  What  flattered  Madame  de  Montespan  still 
more  in  her  new  estate  was  the  ease  with  which  she  was 
able  to  satisfy  her  intense  love  of  magnificence.  For  several 
years  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  belonged  entirely  to  the 
Marquise;  the  momentary  wanderings  of  the  King's  heart 
did  not  prevent  his  return  to  his  seductive  mistress.  But 
with  time  his  passion  cooled;  Madame  de  Montespan  was 
also  seized  with  remorse.  The  exhortations  of  Madame  de 
Maintenon  {q,  v.),  supported  by  those  of  others  opposed  to 
the  adroit  favourite,  struck  the  monarch  with  their  justice. 
This  was  the  cause  of  the  jealousy  between  Montespan  and 


64  LA    MARQUISE    DE    MONTESPAN 

Maintenon.  The  King  himself  was  forced  to  intervene  in 
their  quarrels  and  reconcile  them  only  to  see  them  fall  out 
again  the  next  day.  An  incident  interrupted  these  alterca- 
tions, and  the  Prince  for  whom  two  women  were  disputing 
gave  himself  up  entirely  to  a  third,  Fontanges.  The  reign 
of  the  latter,  however,  was  short,  she  dying  in  i68i.  To 
the  mistake  of  exhibiting  an  indecent  joy  at  this  death, 
Madame  de  Montespan  added  that  of  mixing  in  intrigues 
to  deprive  Madame  de  Maintenon  of  the  King's  esteem; 
but  they  met  with  no  success.  There  was  only  one  thing 
left, — retreat;  and  she  could  not  make  up  her  mind  to  this. 
At  last,  in  1686,  Louis  XIV.,  shocked  to  see  that  Madame 
de  Montespan  was  still  hoping  to  win  him  back,  had  her 
notified  that  he  would  have  no  further  dealings  whatsoever 
with  her  and  that  he  would  send  her  to  Paris  if  she  con- 
tinued her  importunities.  Madame  de  Maintenon  was 
entrusted  with  this  mission,  and  this  selection  could  only 
render  the  blow  all  the  harder.  At  this  period,  there  was 
nothing  to  hold  Madame  de  Montespan  to  the  Court:  the 
Queen  had  been  dead  for  several  years,  and  the  post  of 
superintendant  of  her  household,  which  had  kept  the 
Marquise  by  her  side,  no  longer  existed.  She  stayed  for 
some  time  longer,  but,  finding  nothing  to  support  her  hopes, 
she  felt  that  there  was  nothing  left  to  do  but  to  retire. 
Moreover,  this  resolution  had  become  necessary,  and  they 
had  had  the  harshness  to  have  it  suggested  by  the  Due  du 
Maine. 

It  took  Madame  de  Montespan  some  time  to  accustom 
herself  to  the  kind  of  void  in  which  she  found  herself  after 


LA    MARQUISE    DE    MONTESPAN  65 

leaving  the  brilliant  court  over  which  she  had  reigned  for 
so  many  years.  She  carried  her  weariness  into  various  places, 
her  estates,  the  Eaux  de  Bourbon,  and  elsewhere.  At  last 
Religion  offered  her  a  refuge,  and  she  gave  herself  up  to  it 
entirely.  She  retired  into  the  community  of  the  Filles  de 
St.  Joseph,  which  she  had  enlarged  and  enriched.  She  wrote 
to  the  Marquis  de  Montespan  in  the  most  submissive  terms, 
offering  to  go  anywhere  he  might  indicate.  The  so  long 
outraged  husband  replied  that  he  wanted  neither  to  see  her, 
nor  to  prescribe  any  course,  nor  ever  to  hear  her  name 
uttered,  and  he  died  without  pardoning  her. 

Madame  de  Montespan  had  always  taken  pleasure  in 
relieving  indigence;  and  the  last  years  of  this  life,  formerly 
so  sensual  and  luxurious,  saw  only  every  kind  of  privation. 
She  spent  every  moment  in  working  and  making  others 
work  for  the  poor  and  the  people  about  her;  she  paid 
numerous  pensions  to  nobles  who  had  no  fortune;  she 
dowered  orphans,  and,  in  order  to  satisfy  so  much  munifi- 
cence, she  imposed  constant  sacrifices  upon  herself.  Finally, 
she  tried  to  make  reparation  for  her  errors  by  submitting 
to  frequent  fasts  and  cruel  mortifications,  and  this  zeal, 
which  might  be  considered  excessive,  lasted  until  the  end  of 
her  life.  But  the  austerities  of  penitence  did  not  interfere 
in  the  least  with  her  taste  for  travel:  by  that  means  she 
endeavoured  to  calm  her  natural  restlessness  and  to  quench 
the  attachment  which  she  long  felt  to  the  Court.  Saint-Simon 
says:  "One  might  have  thought  that  she  hoped  to  cheat 
Death  by  changing  her  abode  so  often."  She  was  always 
saying  she  was  ill  without  really  being  so,  and  she  con- 


66  LA    MARQUISE    DE    MONTESPAN 

stantly  showed  the  most  lively  fear  of  death.  Her  room 
was  always  fully  Illuminated  all  night  and  people  always 
sat  beside  her  so  that  she  might  not  find  herself  alone  In  case 
her  sleep  was  Interrupted.  Always  employed  In  expiating 
her  past  faults,  she  recovered  the  feelings  of  a  good  mother 
towards  the  Due  d'AntIn,  her  only  child  by  the  Marquis 
de  Montespan,  for  whom  she  had  long  shown  great  Indif- 
ference. She  was  very  fond  of  her  other  children,  espe- 
cially the  Comte  de  Toulouse,  who  deserved  his  father's 
affection  and  was  always  a  tender  and  respectful  son  to  his 
mother. 

At  the  beginning  of  1707,  Madame  de  Montespan  went 
to  Bourbon  TArchambault.  Although  her  health  did  not 
seem  to  be  bad,  a  presentiment  which  she  did  not  conceal 
led  her  to  pay  in  advance  for  two  years  the  pensions  that 
she  allowed  to  so  many  people.  The  event  justified  her 
generous  foresight.  At  the  end  of  May,  she  was  attacked 
by  the  malady  that  took  her  to  the  tomb.  Although 
seventy  years  of  age,  she  had  preserved  almost  all  her  beauty. 
Such  was  the  end  of  this  woman  so  remarkable  for  her 
charms,  her  wit,  and  the  part  she  played  during  a  portion 
of  the  most  brilliant  reign  of  the  French  monarchy. 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND 

(1640 — 1709) 
MRS.    JAMESON 

SIR  WILLIAM  VILLIERS,  descended  from  the 
eldest  branch  of  the  house  of  Villiers  (the  younger 
branch  becoming  Dukes  of  Buckingham),  succeeded  his 
uncle,  Oliver  St.  John,  in  the  title  of  Viscount  Grandison, 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Ireland,  On  the  breaking  out  of  the 
civil  wars,  he,  with  all  his  family,  adhered  to  the  King's 
party,  and  distinguished  himself  by  his  devoted  loyalty  and 
chivalrous  bravery.  At  the  siege  of  Bristol,  in  1643,  he 
was  desperately  wounded,  and,  being  carried  to  Oxford, 
died  there  a  few  days  afterwards,  at  the  age  of  thirty.  He 
married  Mary,  third  daughter  of  Paul,  Viscount  Bayning, 
by  whom  he  left  an  only  daughter  and  heiress,  Barbara 
Villiers,  afterwards  Duchess  of  Cleveland, 

Of  the  early  life  and  education  of  this  too  celebrated 
woman,  I  have  not  been  able  to  collect  any  authentic 
information.  She  married,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  Roger 
Palmer,  Esq.,  a  gentleman  of  fortune  and  a  loyal  adherent 
of  the  exiled  King.  Her  first  acquaintance  with  Charles 
probably  commenced  in  Holland,  whither  she  accompanied 
her  husband  in  1659,  when  he  carried  to  the  King  a  con- 
siderable  sum  of   money,   to   aid   in   his   restoration,    and 

67 


68      THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND 

assisted  him  also  by  his  personal  services.  But  her  connec- 
tion with  Charles  cannot  be  traced  with  any  certainty  before 
the  very  day  of  his  entrance  into  London :  on  the  evening  of 
that  very  day,  Charles,  instead  of  sleeping  in  the  palace  of 
his  ancestors,  to  which  he  had  just  been  restored,  skulked 
away  privately  to  the  house  of  Sir  Samuel  Moreland,  at 
Vauxhall,  where  he  had  an  assignation  with  Mrs.  Palmer. 

That  an  accomplished  Prince,  in  the  prime  of  life,  skilled 
in  all  the  arts  that  ensnare  her  sex — the  sovereign  for  whose 
sake  her  father  had  fought  and  bled;  whom  she  had  just 
seen  restored — miraculously  restored,  as  it  was  then  believed, 
to  the  throne  of  his  fathers,  welcomed  to  his  capital  with 
almost  delirious  joy,  and  who,  in  such  a  moment,  threw 
himself  and  his  new-found  kingdom  at  her  feet,  should  have 
conquered  the  heart  and  triumphed  over  the  virtue  of  a 
woman  so  vain  and  volatile — ^is  not  marvellous:  she  was 
only  nineteen,  and  thrown  by  the  blind  confidence  or  time- 
serving carelessness  of  her  husband  into  the  very  way  of 
temptation.  Thus  far  her  frailty,  if  not  excusable,  might 
have  been  pardoned,  if  the  end  had  not  proved  that  personal 
affection  for  the  King  had  little  to  do  with  her  lapse  from 
virtue,  and  that,  in  short,  she  was  more  of  a  Montespan 
than  a  La  Valliere — ^more  of  an  Alice  Pierce  than  a  Jane 
Shore. 

In  a  few  months  after  the  restoration.  Palmer  was 
created  an  Irish  peer,  with  the  title  of  Earl  of  Castlemaine. 
He,  meekest  of  men,  was,  or  affected  to  be,  a  little  sulky 
and  restive  at  first  under  his  new  dignities,  but  means  were 
soon  found  to  pacify  him;  and  he  afterwards  submitted  to 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND. 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND      69 

the  coronet,  and  other  honours  which  his  beautiful  wife 
showered  on  his  head,  with  a  spirit  of  philosophy  and 
resignation  which  was  quite  edifying. 

The  passion  of  the  King  for  Lady  Castlemaine,  and  her 
influence  over  him,  were  at  their  height  at  the  time  that  his 
marriage  with  Catherine  of  Portugal  was,  from  political 
motives,  resolved  on.  When  the  Queen*s  arrival  at  Ports- 
mouth was  announced  in  London,  Charles  was  supping  at 
Lady  Castlemaine's  house  in  the  Strand.  Bonfires  had  been 
lighted,  in  token  of  respect  and  rejoicing,  before  every  door 
in  the  street  except  hers — an  omission  which  did  not  pass 
unobserved;  nor  did  she  attempt  to  conceal  her  despair, 
when  the  King  left  her  to  meet  his  bride.  It  was  probably 
sincere;  for  she  had  as  much  reason  to  dread,  as  all  good 
men  had  to  hope  for,  the  influence  of  a  young  and  beloved 
Queen.  Unhappily  her  fears  and  others'  hopes  proved 
groundless:  the  King  could  not  break  the  fetters  which  her 
charms  and  her  imperious  temper  had  flung  round  him,  and 
the  Queen  had  not  beauty  and  tact  enough  to  win  him  from 
her  rival. 

Catherine  had  arrived  in  England  with  a  fixed  resolution 
not  to  admit  Lady  Castlemaine  into  her  presence — "  her 
mother,"  she  said,  "  had  enjoined  her  not  to  do  so  "  ;  but 
the  King  had  determined  otherwise;  and  the  gay  courtiers, 
who  had  the  most  influence  over  his  mind,  were  precisely 
those  who  had  everything  to  hope  from  the  misrule  of  Lady 
Castlemaine  and  nothing  to  expect  from  the  countenance  of 
Catherine.  Lady  Castlemaine  was  created  one  of  the  ladies 
of  the  bedchamber,  and  soon  after  lodged  in  Whitehall, 


70      THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND 

where  she  occupied  apartments  immediately  over  those  of 
the  King. 

From  this  time  may  be  dated  the  absolute  power  which 
this  haughty  and  abandoned  woman  exercised  over  the  easy- 
tempered  Charles — an  influence  never  exercised  but  for  her 
own  aggrandisement  and  his  dishonour,  or  the  ruin  of  his 
best  friends  and  most  faithful  servants.  In  her  chamber 
and  among  the  profligate  crew  who  surrounded  her,  was 
prepared  the  plot  against  the  Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon, 
which  ended  in  the  disgrace  and  banishment  of  that  great 
nobleman,  the  earliest  and  best  friend  of  her  father.  When 
he  returned  from  Whitehall,  after  resigning  the  seals,  she 
jumped  out  of  bed  in  her  night-dress,  to  look  down  upon 
him  as  he  passed,  and  stood  upon  her  balcony,  abusing  him 
loudly  and  in  the  coarsest  terms  her  vulgar  malice  could 
suggest.  When  she  quarrelled  with  the  great  Duke  of 
Ormond,  who  had  offended  her  in  many  ways,  but  chiefly 
by  refusing  to  sanction  her  enormous  drains  upon  the  Irish 
treasury,  she  reviled  him,  swore  at  him,  and  finally  told 
him  "  she  hoped  to  see  him  hanged."  To  which  the  Duke 
replied,  with  a  grave  humour  becoming  his  character,  that 
"  far  from  wishing  her  ladyship*s  days  shortened  in  return, 
his  greatest  desire  was  to  see  her  grow  old." 

But  her  countenance  was  always  extended  to  those  who 
flattered  her  passions,  ministered  to  her  avarice,  or  were 
subservient  to  her  pleasures.  She  indeed  gave  encourage- 
ment to  Dryden  in  the  beginning  of  his  literary  career;  but 
it  seems  to  have  been  more  through  contradiction  than 
any  perception  of  merit,  that  she  persisted  in  patronising 


THE    DUCHESS    OF   CLEVELAND  71 

his  first  and  worst  play,  after  it  had  been  summarily  ex- 
ecuted. 

The  sums  which  this  harpy  contrived  to  appropriate  from 
the  funds  of  the  state  almost  exceed  belief.  She  was,  to  use 
Burnet's  coarse  expression  in  speaking  of  her,  "  enormously 
ravenous";  it  was,  however,  rather  rapacity  than  avarice; 
for  what  was  obtained  unworthily,  was  lavished  as  extrava- 
gantly. Besides  a  grant  of  £5,322  a  year  out  of  the  post- 
office  to  her  and  her  heirs,  she  had  twenty  thousand  a  year 
out  of  the  customs.  What  sums  were  occasionally  paid  to 
her  out  of  the  revenues  of  Ireland  cannot  be  ascertained: 
besides  this  income,  immense  in  those  days,  she  had  at 
different  times  gifts  in  money,  jewels,  and  plate,  to  an 
incredible  amount,  and  this  at  the  time  when  the  King's 
household  servants  were  cursing  him  because  they  had  not 
bread  to  eat,  and  he  himself  wanted  linen,  and  was  stinted 
in  writing  paper! 

Berkshire  House  was  purchased  for  her  by  the  King,  in 
1668;  and  as  it  was  of  great  extent,  she  added  to  her  income 
by  converting  part  of  it  Into  separate  houses  and  letting 
them ;  but  all  was  too  little  to  supply  her  monstrous  expendi- 
ture. Among  her  other  extravagances  was  the  vice  of 
gaming:  in  one  night  she  lost  at  basset  £25,000,  and  was 
accustomed  to  stake  one  thousand,  and  fifteen  hundred 
pounds  at  a  cast. 

As  the  fair  Castlemaine  was  one  of  those  ladles  who 
would  "whisk  the  stars  out  of  their  spheres"  rather  than 
lose  one  iota  of  their  will,  it  may  be  imagined  that  her 
connection  with  the  King  was  not  one  long  summer's  day, 


72  THE   DUCHESS    OF   CLEVELAND 

all  serenity  and  sunshine.  In  fact,  not  satisfied  with 
"  nodding  him  from  the  council-board  "  whenever  the  whim 
seized  her,  she  gave  way  to  such  inexplicable  caprices,  and, 
upon  the  slightest  cause,  to  such  bursts  of  tempestuous 
passion,  that  she  sometimes  threw  the  whole  Court  into  an 
uproar,  and  drove  the  poor  King  half-distracted.  It  is 
observable,  that  as  soon  as  she  was  well  assured  of  her 
power  over  Charles,  and  understood  his  character,  she 
never  attempted  to  carry  any  point  by  tenderness  or  cajolery, 
but  by  absenting  herself  from  Court,  or  by  direct  violence; 
she  hectored  him,  as  Pepys  says,  out  of  his  wits. 

"And,  with  bent  lowering  brows,  as  she  would  threat^ 
She  scold'  and  frown'd  with  froward  countenance, 
Unworthy  of  fair  lady's  comely  governance." 

Spenser* 

Charles,  wearied  by  the  dint  of  her  vituperative  tongue, 
and  pained  by  the  disagreeable  sight  of  so  beautiful  a  face 
deformed  by  demon  passions,  hastened  to  relieve  his  eyes 
and  ears  by  granting  her  demands,  however  exorbitant.  At 
times,  however,  being  driven  past  the  bounds  of  patience, 
he  would  make  an  attempt  at  resistance,  which  was  sure  tor 
end  in  his  discomfiture.  Some  instances  on  record  of  her 
coarse  manners  and  termagant  temper  are  ludicrous,  and 
some  disgusting. 

The  last  and  most  tempestuous  of  these  disgraceful  scenes 
ended  in  her  being  raised  to  the  dignity  of  duchess.  "  In 
consideration  of  her  noble  descent,  her  father's  death  in  the 
service  of  the  Crown,  and  by  reason  "  (as  the  letters  patent 
set  forth)  "of  her  own  personal  virtues,'*  she  was  created 


THE  DUCHESS  OF  CLEVELAND      73 

Baroness  of  Nonsuch,  Countess  of  Southampton,  and 
Duchess  of  Cleveland.  The  title  of  Southampton  must  have 
doubly  gratified  her,  as  having  been  that  of  her  old  enemy, 
the  excellent  Lord  Southampton,  who  had  frequently 
excited  her  utmost  displeasure,  by  refusing  to  put  his  seal 
as  treasurer  to  her  exorbitant  grants  of  money,  etc. 

After  this  last  rupture,  and  her  elevation  of  rank,  the 
Duchess  w^Ithdrew  from  the  Court,  though  she  still 
occasionally  appeared  there:  her  Influence  over  the  King 
did  not  entirely  cease  till  the  reign  of  the  Duchess  of  Ports- 
mouth began,  but  she  was  no  longer  all  powerful;  and 
gradually  as  she  debased  herself  more  and  more  by  her 
excesses,  she  sank  Into  neglect  and  contempt.  Pepys  alludes 
in  his  Diary  to  a  quarrel  about  his  time  between  Lady 
Castlemalne  and  the  Duchess  of  Richmond  (the  predecessor 
to  the  fair  Stewart  In  that  title),  which  threw  the  whole 
Court  Into  confusion ;  "  wherein  the  Duchess  of  Richmond 
did  call  my  Lady  Castlemalne  Jane  Shore,  and  hoped  she 
should  live  to  see  her  come  to  the  same  end."  There  was 
in  truth  some  poetical  justice  in  the  catastrophe  of  the 
Duchess  of  Cleveland,  though  the  Duchess  of  Richmond 
had  not  the  comfort  of  living  to  witness  it.  On  the  death 
of  the  Earl  of  Castlemalne,  in  1703,  she  married  a  man 
of  desperate  fortune  and  profligate  habits,  well  known  by 
the  name  of  Beau  Fielding,  and  unequalled  in  those  days 
for  the  beauty  of  his  person.*      Fielding  had  married  her 

*See  The  Toiler,  No.  50,  for  the  History  of  Orlando  the  Fair, 
i.  e.,  the  above-mentioned  Beau  Fielding;  it  is  from  the  pen  of 
Swift. 


74  THE   DUCHESS    OF   CLEVELAND 

for  the  sake  of  her  money;  and  when  she  either  could  not 
or  would  not,  any  longer  supply  his  extravagances,  he  so 
barbarously  ill-treated  her,  that  she  was  obliged  to  have 
recourse  to  a  magistrate  for  protection  against  his  outrages. 
Fortunately  for  her,  it  was  discovered  that  he  had  a  former 
wife  living,  a  low  woman,  who  had  cheated  him  as  he  had 
cheated  all  the  rest  of  her  sex.  He  was  prosecuted  tor 
bigamy,  found  guilty,  but  pardoned  by  Queen  Anne.  His 
conviction  relieved  the  Duchess  from  his  brutality,  but  she 
did  not  long  survive  it:  she  died  of  dropsy  at  her  house  at 
Chiswick,  October  9,  1709,  miserable,  contemned,  and 
neglected ;  leaving  a  name  more  fitted  to  "  point  a  moral  " 
than  to  "  adorn  a  tale." 

The  Duchess  of  Cleveland  was  the  mother  of  six  children, 
three  sons  and  three  daughters.  Charles  Fitzroy,  her  eldest 
son  by  the  King,  was  born  in  1662,  and  created,  during  the 
lifetime  of  his  mother.  Baron  Newberry,  Earl  of  Chichester, 
and  Duke  of  Southampton ;  on  her  death  he  succeeded  to  the 
title  of  Duke  of  Cleveland,  in  which  he  was  succeeded  by 
his  son  William,  after  whose  death  in  1774,  the  title  became 
extinct,  and  has  not  since  been  revived. 

The  beauty  of  the  Duchess  of  Cleveland  was  of  that 
splendid  and  commanding  character  that  dazzles  rather 
than  interests;  it  was,  however,  perfect  in  its  kind.  At  a 
time  when  she  was  most  unpopular,  and  her  charms  and 
excesses  were  creating  disturbances  in  the  Court  and 
disaffection  in  the  country,  she  went  to  Bartholomew  Fair 
to  view  "  the  rare  puppet  show  of  Patient  Grizzle,"  (by 
which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  she  was  greatly  edified).     The 


THE    DUCHESS    OF    CLEVELAND 


75 


rabble,  recognising  her  equipage,  followed  it  with  hisses 
and  curses;  but  when  she  stepped  out,  and  looked  round  in 
all  the  proud  consciousness  of  irresistible  beauty,  the  people, 
struck  with  admiration,  changed  their  curses  into  blessings 
"  on  her  handsome  face,"  though  it  had  helped  to  undo  a 
nation.  The  picture  at  Windsor  represents  her  as  Pallas, 
or  Bellona:  the  last  is  certainly  the  more  appropriate 
character;  it  is  full  of  the  imperious  expression  of  the 
original.  The  face  is  perfectly  beautiful,  the  rich  red  lips 
are  curled  with  arrogance  and  "womanish  disdain,"  and  the 
eyes  look  from  under  their  drooping  lids  with  a  certain 
fierceness  of  expression;  the  action,  the  attitude,  the  accom- 
paniments, are  all  those  of  a  virago;  she  grasps  the  spear 
with  the  air  of  an  all-conquering  beauty,  and  leans  on  her 
shield  as  if  she  disdained  to  use  it;  while  the  grand 
tempestuous  sky  in  the  background,  with  broken  gleams  of 
light  flashing  across  it,  is  in  admirable  keeping  with  the 
whole. 


MADAME    ROLAND 

(1754—1793) 
ALPHONSE   DE   LAMARTINE 

IT  was  impossible  that  the  name  of  Madame  Roland 
should  long  escape  the  resentment  of  the  people.  That 
name  alone  composed  an  entire  party.  The  soul  of  the 
Gironde,  this  woman  might  one  day  prove  a  very  Nemesis, 
if  permitted  to  survive  those  illustrious  individuals  who  had 
preceded  her  to  the  grave. 

Among  such  of  the  Girondists  as  survived,  it  was  deemed 
necessary  to  strike  terror  by  destroying  their  idol — ^while  the 
memory  of  the  dead  was  degraded  by  its  association  with 
the  popular  execration  excited  by  a  female  odious  to  the 
people,  and  a  supposed  foe  to  liberty.  Such  were  the 
motives  which  induced  the  Commune  and  Jacobins  to 
demand  that  Madame  Roland  should  be  brought  to  trial. 

The  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  the  ever-ready  (though 
sometimes  pained)  executor  of  the  wishes  of  the  populace, 
inscribed  the  name  of  Madame  Roland  on  a  list  presented 
every  evening  to  Fouquier  Tinville,  and  which  Robespierre 
signed  with  visible  disquietude.  During  the  early  part  of 
his  abode  in  Paris,  the  deputy  of  Arras,  then  but  little  known, 
had  been  a  constant  visitor  at  Madame  Roland*s  house. 
And  when  the  Constituent  Assembly  wounded  the  pride 

76 


MADAME  ROLAND. 


MADAME     ROLAND  77 

and  disdained  the  words  of  Robespierre,  Madame  Roland 
discerned  his  genius,  honoured  his  pertinacity,  and 
encouraged  his  despised  eloquence.  The  recollection  of  this 
glanced  across  the  mind  of  Robespierre,  as  he  signed  an 
order  for  her  appearing  before  a  tribunal,  which  he  well 
knew  was  the  same  thing  as  signing  a  death-warrant. 
Madame  Roland  and  Robespierre  had  commenced  their 
Revolutionary  career  together,  and  by  the  workings  of  that 
same  Revolution,  the  one  had  attained  unlimited  power, 
while  the  other  had  been  precipitated  into  the  very  depths 
of  adversity,  and  it  was  in  all  probability,  to  the  encourage- 
ment bestowed  on  his  abilities  by  Madame  Roland,  that 
Robespierre  owed  the  elevated  position  he  now  occupied 
and  the  power  it  gave  him  of  decreeing  life  or  death  to  his 
early  friend. 

On  the  31st  of  May,  Madame  Roland  was  committed  to 
the  prison  of  I'Abbaye.  It  is  the  lot  of  some  individuals  to 
attract  a  greater  degree  of  interest  and  curiosity  on  the  part 
of  posterity  than  the  records  of  an  empire,  for  such  persons 
have  united  in  their  situation  and  feelings — their  alternate 
rise  and  fall — all  the  vicissitudes,  catastrophes,  glories,  and 
misfortunes  of  the  time  in  which  they  lived.  Madame 
Roland  was  of  this  class.  Her  enthusiasm  and  passion,  her 
illusions,  her  martyrdom,  her  unextinguishable  hope  for  the 
future,  amid  the  actual  discouragement  of  the  present, 
rendered  her,  even  in  the  very  depths  of  her  dungeon,  a 
living  personification  of  the  Revolution. 

Separated  from  the  world,  torn  from  her  father,  husband, 
and  child,  she  bathed  in  floods  of  inward  tears  the  ardours 


78  MADAME     ROLAND 

of  an  imagination  whose  fires,  though  smouldering,  were 
not  extinct. 

The  gaolers  of  the  Abbaye  sougjit  by  every  means  a  prison 
afforded  to  soften  Madame  Roland's  captivity.  Some 
beings  can  only  be  persecuted  from  a  distance — beauty 
subdues  and  disarms  all  who  approach  it. 

Unknown  to  the  Commissioners,  Madame  Roland  was 
placed  in  a  chamber  into  which  a  ray  of  light  could  find 
entrance.  She  was  even  indulged  with  flowers,  of  which 
she  was  so  passionately  fond;  in  the  days  of  her  happiness  it 
had  been  her  delight  to  surround  herself  with  these  lovely 
productions  of  Nature,  and  she  had  ever  esteemed  them 
among  her  choicest  pleasures.  Climbing  and  leafy  plants 
were  twined  round  the  iron  bars  of  her  window,  in  order 
that  by  concealing  the  thick  grating  the  prisoner  might 
dream  she  was  free.  A  few  of  her  particular  friends  were 
allowed  to  visit  and  converse  with  her.  Books  were  sup- 
plied, and  thus  she  was  enabled  to  pursue  her  favourite 
studies. 

She  was  removed  to  the  Conciergerie.  There,  instead  of 
losing  strength  or  courage,  it  appeared  as  though  both  were 
increased.  As  she  approached  her  end,  her  mind,  her 
language,  and  her  features  seemed  to  take  the  impress  of 
one  appointed  to  fill  some  great  and  lofty  destiny.  During 
the  few  days  she  passed  in  the  Conciergerie,  she  spread,  by 
her  presence  among  the  numerous  prisoners  there,  an 
enthusiasm  and  contempt  of  death  that  elevated  the  most 
abject  and  depressed.  The  approach  to  the  scaffold  seemed 
to  give  a  more  divine  character  to  her  beauty;  the  length  of 


MADAME    ROLAND  79 

her  captivity,  the  calm  consciousness  with  which  she 
recognised  the  hopelessness  of  her  situation,  her  voice 
tremulous  with  the  emotion  she  forbade  to  vent  itself  in 
tears — gave  to  her  words  that  thrilling  interest  that  finds 
its  way  to  every  heart.  She  conversed  at  the  grate  with 
the  numerous  members  of  her  party,  who,  like  herself,  had 
found  their  way  to  the  Conciergerie.  Standing  on  a  stone 
bench,  which  elevated  her  a  little  above  the  ground,  and 
clasping  her  fingers  round  the  iron  bars  that  separated  the 
opening  between  the  cloister  and  the  court,  she  found  her 
tribune  in  her  prison,  and  her  audience  in  her  companions 
to  the  scaffold. 

The  examination  and  trial  of  Madame  Roland  was  but 
a  repetition  of  those  charges  against  the  Gironde  with 
which  every  harangue  of  the  Jacobin  party  was  filled.  She 
was  reproached  with  being  the  wife  of  Roland,  and  the 
friend  of  his  accomplices.  With  a  proud  look  of  triumph 
Madame  Roland  admitted  her  guilt  in  both  instances,  spoke 
of  her  husband  with  tenderness,  of  her  friends  with 
respect,  and  of  herself  with  dignified  modesty;  but  borne 
down  by  the  clamours  of  the  court  whenever  she  gave  vent 
to  her  indignation  against  her  persecutors,  she  ceased  speak- 
ing amid  the  threats  and  invectives  of  her  auditors.  The 
people  were  at  that  period  permitted  to  take  a  fearful  and 
leading  part  in  the  dialogue  between  the  judges  and  accused ; 
they  even  permitted  to  persons  tried  to  address  the  court 
or  compel  their  silence;  the  very  verdict  rested  with  them. 

Madame  Roland  saw  herself  sentenced  to  death  with  the 
air  of  one  who  saw  in  her  condemnation  merely  her  title  to 


8o  MADAME     ROLAND 

immortality.  She  rose,  and  slightly  bowing  to  her  judges, 
said,  with  a  bitter  and  ironical  smile,  "  I  thank  you  for 
considering  me  worthy  to  share  the  fate  of  the  good  and 
great  men  you  have  murdered !  "  She  flew  down  the  steps 
of  the  Conciergerie  with  the  rapid  swiftness  of  a  child  about 
to  attain  some  long-desired  object:  the  end  and  aim  of  her 
desires  was  death.  As  she  passed  along  the  corridor,  where 
all  the  prisoners  had  assembled  to  greet  her  return,  she 
looked  at  them  smilingly,  and  drawing  her  right  hand 
across  her  throat,  made  a  sign  expressive  of  cutting  off  a 
head.  This  was  her  only  farewell;  it  was  tragic  as  her 
destiny,  joyous  as  her  deliverance;  and  well  was  it  under- 
stood by  those  who  saw  it.  Many  who  were  incapable  of 
weeping  for  their  own  fate  shed  tears  of  unfeigned  sorrow 
for  hers. 

On  that  day  a  greater  number  than  usual  of  carts  laden 
with  victims  rolled  onwards  toward  the  scafEold.  Madame 
Roland  was  placed  in  the  last,  beside  a  weak  and  infirm  old 
man,  named  Lamarche,  once  director  of  the  manufactory 
of  Assignats.  She  wore  a  white  robe,  as  a  symbol  of  her 
innocence,  of  which  she  was  anxious  to  convince  the  people; 
her  magnificent  hair,  black  and  glossy  as  a  raven's  wing, 
fell  in  thick  masses  almost  to  her  knees;  her  complexion, 
purified  by  her  long  captivity,  and  now  glowing  under  the 
influence  of  a  sharp,  frosty,  November  day,  bloomed  with 
all  the  freshness  of  early  youth.  Her  eyes  were  full  of 
expression;  her  whole  countenance  seemed  radiant  with 
glory,  while  a  movement  between  pity  and  contempt 
agitated  her  lips.     A  crowd   followed   them  uttering  the 


MADAME    ROLAND  8i 

coarsest  threats  and  most  revolting  expressions.  "To  the 
guillotine!  to  the  guillotine!"  exclaimed  the  female  part  of 
the  rabble.  "  I  am  going  to  the  guillotine,"  replied  Madame 
Roland,  "  a  few  moments  and  I  shall  be  there ;  but  those 
who  send  me  thither  will  not  be  long  ere  they  follow  me. 
I  go  innocent,  but  they  will  come  stained  with  blood,  and 
you  who  applaud  our  execution,  will  then  applaud  theirs 
with  equal  zeal."  Sometimes  she  would  turn  away  her 
head  that  she  might  not  appear  to  hear  the  insults  with 
which  she  was  assailed,  and  lean  with  almost  filial  tender- 
ness over  the  aged  partner  of  her  execution.  The  poor  old 
man  wept  bitterly,  she  kindly  and  cheeringly  encouraged 
him  to  bear  up  with  firmness,  and  to  suffer  with  resignation. 
She  even  tried  to  enliven  the  dreary  journey  they  were  per- 
forming together  by  little  attempts  at  cheerfulness,  and  at 
length  succeeded  in  winning  a  smile  from  her  fellow- 
sufferer. 

A  colossal  statue  of  Liberty,  composed  of  clay,  like  the 
liberty  of  the  time,  then  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  on  the  spot  now  occupied  by  the  Obelisk; 
the  scaffold  was  erected  beside  this  statue.  Upon  arriving 
there,  Madame  Roland  descended  from  the  cart  in  which 
she  had  been  driven.  Just  as  the  executioner  had  seized  her 
arm  to  enable  her  to  be  the  first  to  mount  to  the  guillotine, 
she  displayed  one  of  those  noble  and  tender  considerations 
for  others  that  only  a  woman's  heart  could  conceive,  or  put 
into  practice  at  such  a  moment.  "  Stay!  "  said  she,  momen- 
tarily resisting  the  man's  grasp,  "  I  have  only  one  favour 
to  ask,  and  that  is  not  for  myself.     I  beseech  you  to  grant 


82  MADAME     ROLAND 

it  to  me."  Then  turning  to  the  old  man,  she  said :  "  Do 
you  precede  me  to  the  scaffold;  to  see  my  blood  flow  would 
be  making  you  suffer  the  bitterness  of  death  twice  over.  I 
must  spare  you  the  pain  of  witnessing  my  punishment." 
The  executioner  allowed  this  arrangement  to  be  made. 

After  the  execution  of  Lamarche,  which  she  heard  with- 
out changing  colour,  Madame  Roland  stepped  lightly  up 
to  the  scaffold,  and  bowing  before  the  statue  of  Liberty,  as 
though  to  do  homage  to  a  power  for  whom  she  was  about 
to  die,  exclaimed,  "O  Liberty!  Liberty!  how  many  crimes 
are  committed  in  thy  name."  She  then  resigned  herself  to 
the  hands  of  the  executioner,  and  in  a  few  seconds  her  head 
fell  into  the  basket  placed  to  receive  it. 

Thus  perished  a  woman  whose  earliest  and  fondest 
dream  had  been  the  Revolution,  and  who  had  created  in  the 
mind  of  her  aged  partner  a  hatred  for  royalty  resembling 
her  own;  who  had  communicated  her  feelings  to  a  set  of 
young,  eloquent^  and  enthusiastic  men,  attached  to  antique 
theories,  and  who  found  in  the  lips  and  eyes  of  their 
goddess  a  species  of  endless  adoration.  The  pure  and 
involuntary  affection  with  which  her  beauty  and  genius 
inspired  them  was  the  magic  circle  that  retained  around 
her  so  many  superior  men,  who  were  prevented  by  various 
differences  of  opinion  from  preserving  the  same  bond  of 
union  when  beyond  her  influence;  they  were  spell-bound  by 
her  talents,  and,  highly  imaginative  themselves,  placed  their 
whole  confidence  in  the  imagination  of  their  idol,  who  thus 
became  their  oracle  as  well. 

She  led  them  on  till  one  after  the  other  perished  on  the 


MADAME     ROLAND  83 

scaffold,  where  she  followed  them,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
Gironde  departed  forever,  with  the  last  breath  exhaled 
from  the  lips  of  Madame  Roland,  who  bore  then  the  same 
resemblance  to  the  Republic  she  will  ever  preserve  in  the 
eyes  of  posterity:  like  it  she  was  premature  and  ideal — 
beautiful  to  view,  eloquent  to  listen  to,  but  her  footsteps 
were  marked  with  the  blood  of  her  friends,  and  her  head 
fell  beneath  the  same  sword  that  had  immolated  so  many 
others  in  the  sight  of  a  people  who  no  longer  acknowledged 
her.  Her  body,  the  idol  of  so  many  hearts,  was  thrown  into 
the  common  fosse  at  Clamart. 


LrADY  HAMILTON 

(1764—1815) 
JOHN    PAGET 

ON  the  26th  of  April,  1764,  at  Preston,  in  Lancaster, 
a  girl  was  born  of  poor  parents,  of  the  name  of 
Lyons.  If  a  fairy  had  sat  by  the  cradle  of  that  child  and 
promised  her  matchless  beauty  and  mental  endowments  of 
the  highest  order — had  told  her  that  all  that  wealth  could 
purchase  should  be  lavished  upon  her;  that  princes  and 
nobles,  poets  and  painters,  should  hang  upon  the  tones  of 
her  voice  and  the  smiles  that  played  round  her  lips;  that 
she  should  go  forth  to  the  fairest  of  lands,  whose  Queen 
should  select  her  for  her  most  intimate  and  cherished  friend ; 
that  she  should  reign  absolute  in  the  heart  of  one  whose 
name  filled  all  tongues,  and  that  upon  her  the  destinies  of 
the  world  should  depend; — and  if  another  voice  had  then 
whispered,  "  All  this  shall  be  so  unto  thee,  but  thy  fame 
shall  be  blasted ;  thy  name  shall  be  spoken  with  bated  breath 
as  a  word  of  shame;  foul  crimes  shall  be  falsely  charged 
against  thee,  and,  for  thy  sake,  against  him  who  shall  love 
thee  as  only  hearts  as  great  and  generous  as  his  can  love; 
obloquy  shall  be  heaped  upon  thy  head,  and  thou  shalt  die 
an  outcast  in  a  foreign  land,  lonely,  forlorn,  and  deserted;" 
such  a  prophecy  would  not  have  equalled  in  strangeness  the 
real  events  of  the  life  of  that  child. 

84 


LADY  HAMILTON. 


LADY     HAMILTON  85 

The  father  of  Emma  Lyons  died  whilst  she  was  an  infant, 
and  upon  his  death  her  mother  removed  from  Preston  to 
the  village  of  Hawarden  in  Flintshire.  Here  at  a  very 
early  age  she  was  engaged  as  a  nursery-maid  in  the  family 
of  a  Mr.  Thomas  who  resided  in  that  village,  and  who  was 
brother-in-law  to  the  well-known  Alderman  Boydell.  Her 
next  engagement  was  in  a  similar  capacity  in  the  family  of 
Dr.  Budd,  one  of  the  physicians  to  St.  Bartholomew's 
Hospital,  who  resided  in  Chatham  Place,  Blackfriars.  This 
fact  is  mentioned  by  Dr.  Pettigrew  in  his  Memoirs  of  Lord 
Nelson,  and  as  he  was  personally  acquainted  with  Dr.  Budd, 
the  correctness  of  his  information  may,  no  doubt,  be  relied 
upon.  She  passed  from  his  service  into  that  of  a  tradesman 
in  St.  James's  Market;  and  afterwards  seems  to  have 
resided  some  time  as  a  kind  of  humble  companion  with  a 
lady  of  fashion,  whose  attention  had  been  accidentally 
attracted  by  her  remarkable  beauty.  It  was  during  her 
residence  with  this  lady  that  she  appears  to  have  first  had 
the  opportunity  of  acquiring  the  rudiments  of  those  accom- 
plishments for  which  she  afterwards  became  so  remarkable. 

Up  to  this  period  Emma  Lyons  maintained  a  spotless 
reputation.  Accident  and  her  own  kindness  of  heart  now, 
however,  occasioned  her  introduction  to  Captain,  afterwards 
Admiral  Payne,  a  distinguished  officer.  A  relation  or 
acquaintance,  a  native  of  Wales,  had  been  impressed  in  the 
Thames,  and  to  Captain  Payne  she  applied  for  his  release. 
The  Captain  became  enamoured,  pressed  his  suit,  and  pre- 
vailed. She  became  his  mistress,  and  retreat  in, such  a  path 
being  next  to  impossible,  she  subsequently  formed  a  similar 


86  LADY    HAMILTON 

connection  with  Sir  Henry  Featherstonehaugh  of  Up  Park 
in  Sussex.  We  would  willingly  pass  rapidly  over  this  part 
of  her  life,  but  the  tale,  though  sad,  must  be  told.  Few  who 
consider  what  were  the  temptations  to  which  she  must  have 
been  exposed,  the  lax  manners  of  the  day,  her  youth,  her 
wonderful  beauty,  and  the  delight  which  a  girl  of  her 
mental  capacity  must  have  felt  in  the  society  of  men  of 
intellect  and  education,  will  be  disposed  to  pass  a  severe 
judgment  upon  her. 

It  has  been  confidently  asserted  that  at  this  time  she 
became  connected  with  the  infamous  empiric.  Dr.  Graham; 
that  she  was  the  woman  who,  under  the  name  of  "  Hebe 
Vestina,"  bore  a  part  in  his  exhibition;  and  that  it  was  to 
this  circumstance  that  she  owed  her  introduction  to  Romney, 
and  her  employment  as  a  model  by  Reynolds,  Hopner,  and 
other  celebrated  artists. 

It  is  with  her  introduction  to  Romney  that  the  public 
interest  of  Lady  Hamilton's  life  commences.  It  is  im- 
possible to  gaze  on  the  face  so  familiar  to  every  one,  and 
which  owes  its  immortality  to  his  pencil,  without  feelings 
of  deep  emotion.  The  charm  consists  not  in  beauty  of 
feature,  marvellous  though  that  beauty  is.  There  beams  in 
those  eyes,  and  plays  around  those  lips,  the  power  of  fascina- 
tion which,  a  few  years  later,  brought  princes,  statesmen, 
and  heroes  to  worship  at  her  feet. 

Marvellous  and  inscrutable  are  the  ways  by  which 
"  Providence  doth  shape  our  ends  " !  Had  that  face  been 
less  beautiful,  had  the  heart  of  its  possessor  been  less  brave 
and  faithful,  had  she  lacked  courage  or  promptitude,- 


LADY    HAMILTON  87 

strange  as  it  may  sound,  had  she  been  less  frail,  had  she 
possessed  fewer  virtues  or  fewer  faults, — the  whole  course 
of  history  might  have  been  changed,  and  the  Nile,  and  even 
Trafalgar,  have  had  no  place  in  the  annals  of  England. 

It  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  that  Emma  Harte  ( for  such 
was  the  name  by  which  at  this  time  she  was  known),  was 
the  servant,  the  model,  and  the  mistress  of  Romney.  This 
story  will  be  found,  on  investigation,  just  as  groundless  as 
the  grosser  one  of  her  connection  with  the  quack  Graham. 
At  the  time  of  her  introduction  to  Romney,  Emma  Harte 
was  living  with  the  Honourable  C.  Greville,  a  young  man 
of  high  family  and  position;  she  resided  with  him  for  six 
or  seven  years — ^his  wife  in  everything  except  in  legal  title 
to  the  name;  and  his  letters  show  that,  long  after  the  termi- 
nation of  that  connection,  he  retained  feelings  of  warm  and 
respectful  affection  for  her.  Romney  was,  at  this  time,  long 
past  middle  life.  That  he,  like  his  friend  Hayley,  the 
biographer  of  Cowper,  conceived  a  romantic  attachment  to 
the  beautiful  subject  of  his  pencil  is  abundantly  shown  by 
his  letters.  The  morbid  tendencies  of  Romney's  mind, 
which  a  few  years  later  developed  themselves  into  evident 
insanity,  are  well  known.  "  The  divine  lady,"  as  he  calls 
her,  was  the  object  of  sentimental  and  distant  adoration, 
and  never  did  devout  worshipper  pay  more  precious  homage 
at  the  shrine  of  his  idol.  He  painted  as  many  as  twenty- 
three  pictures  of  her. 

From  1782  till  1789  Emma  Harte  continued  to  reside 
under  the  protection  of  Mr.  Greville.  In  that  year  he  was 
compelled   to   break   up   his   establishment,    and    to   make 


88  LADY    HAMILTON 

arrangements  with  his  creditors.  Sir  William  Hamilton 
prevailed  upon  Emma  Harte  to  accompany  him  to  Naples, 
where  he  had  so  long  resided  as  British  Ambassador.  There 
she  remained  for  two  years,  and  in  1791  returned  to  London 
with  Sir  William  Hamilton.  The  accomplishments  which 
she  had  sedulously  cultivated  during  her  residence  with 
Mr.  Greville  had  been  brought  to  perfection  during  her 
stay  in  Italy.  In  August,  1791,  Romney  writes:  "  She 
performed  in  my  house  last  week,  singing  and  acting  before 
some  of  the  nobility  with  the  most  astonishing  powers;  she 
is  the  talk  of  the  whole  town,  and  really  surpasses  every- 
thing both  in  singing  and  acting,  that  ever  appeared. 
Gallini  offered  her  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  and  two 
benefits  if  she  would  engage  with  him;  on  which  Sir 
William  said,  pleasantly,  that  he  had  engaged  her  for  life." 

On  the  6th  of  September,  1791,  within  a  fortnight  of 
the  party  at  Romney's  house,  Emma  Harte  became  Lady 
Hamilton,  and  thus  acquired  a  legal  title  to  the  name  by 
which  she  will  be  known  as  long  as  the  history  of  England 
lasts. 

Immediately  after  the  marriage.  Sir  William  and  Lady 
Hamilton  started  for  Naples.  A  letter  from  the  unhappy 
Marie  Antoinette  (said  to  have  been  the  last  she  addressed 
to  her  sister)  secured  her  an  introduction  to  the  Queen,  who 
soon  admitted  her  to  the  closest  intimacy  and  most  com- 
plete confidence.  We  find  from  Lord  St.  Vincent's  letters 
that  she  employed  the  influence  she  thus  acquired  to  promote 
the  interests  of  Great  Britain.  He  distinguishes  her  by  the 
title  of  "  Patroness  of  the  Navy."     The  letters  of  Trou- 


LADY     HAMILTON  89 

bridge  and  Ball,  and  others  of  that  gallant  band  who 
shared  the  glory  of  Nelson,  show  that  they  entertained  a 
similar  feeling.  It  was  not  long  before  she  was  enabled 
to  perform  an  important  service.  The  King  of  Naples  had 
received  from  the  King  of  Spain  a  private  letter,  com- 
municating his  determination  to  desert  the  cause  of  the 
Allies,  and  to  join  France  against  England.  Of  this  letter 
the  Queen  obtained  possession,  and  communicated  its  con- 
tents to  Lady  Hamilton.  Sir  William  was  dangerously  ill, 
and  unable  to  attend  to  his  duties;  but  Lady  Hamilton 
immediately  despatched  a  copy  of  the  letter  to  Lord  Gren- 
ville,  taking  the  necessary  means  for  insuring  its  safety, — 
a  precaution  which  was  attended  with  the  expense  of  about 
£400,  which  she  paid  out  of  her  private  purse.  The  Minis- 
try immediately  acted  upon  this  information,  and  sent 
orders  to  Sir  John  Jarvis  to  take  hostile  steps,  if  opportunity 
should  offer,  against  Spain. 

Many  services  were  performed  for  the  English  navy 
by  Lady  Hamilton  during  this  difficult  period,  when  the 
French  influence  was  so  powerful  at  Naples  as  to  render  it 
dangerous  for  the  British  Minister  even  to  appear  at  Court. 
It  was  in  the  month  of  June,  1798,  however,  that  Lady 
Hamilton  performed  the  act  which  entitles  her  to  the  last- 
ing gratitude  of  all  who  feel  pride  in  the  glory  of  the 
British  navy. 

Naples  was  at  peace  with  France.  One  of  the  stipula- 
tions of  the  treaty  was,  that  no  more  than  two  English 
ships-of-war  should  enter  into  any  of  the  Neapolitan  or 
Sicilian  ports.     Nelson  was  in  pursuit  of  the  French  fleet, 


90  LADY    HAMILTON 

but  in  urgent  want  of  provisions  and  water.  He  despatched 
Troubridge  to  Sir  William  Hamilton,  urging  upon  him  to 
procure  permission  for  the  fleet  to  enter  Naples  or  one  of 
the  Sicilian  ports,  as  otherwise  he  should  be  compelled  to  run 
to  Gibraltar  for  supplies,  and  to  give  over  all  further  pur- 
suit of  the  French  fleet.  Troubridge  arrived  at  Naples  about 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  instantly  called  up  Sir 
William  Hamilton.  They  went  to  the  Neapolitan  minister, 
Acton.  A  council  was  summoned,  at  which  the  feeble  and 
vacillating  King  presided.  Their  deliberations  lasted  for 
an  hour  and  a  half,  and  ended  in  disappointment.  The 
King  dared  not  break  with  France.  The  application  was 
refused.  But  in  the  meantime  a  more  powerful  agent  than 
Sir  William  Hamilton  had  been  at  work,  and  a  more  vigorous 
and  bolder  mind  than  that  of  the  King  had  come  to  an 
opposite  determination.  The  little  bare-footed  girl  of  the 
Welsh  village  and  the  daughter  of  Maria  Theresa  of 
Austria  had  met.  The  time  which  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
Troubridge,  and  Acton  had  vainly  spent  in  attempting  to 
move  the  King,  had  been  passed  by  Lady  Hamilton  with  the 
Queen,  who,  having  given  birth  to  a  son,  was  by  the  laws 
of  Naples  entitled  to  a  voice  in  the  State  Council.  By  the 
most  vehement  entreaties  and  arguments,  she  obtained  her 
signature  to  an  order  addressed  "  to  all  governors  of  the 
two  Sicilies  to  receive  with  hospitality  the  British  fleet,  to 
water,  victual,  and  aid  them."  As  Lady  Hamilton  placed 
this  order  in  the  hands  of  Troubridge,  he  exclaimed  that 
**  it  would  cheer  Nelson  to  ecstacy !  " 

Armed  with  this  authority.  Nelson  entered  the  port  of 


LADY    HAMILTON  9^ 

Syracuse,  victualled  and  watered  his  fleet,  and  fought  and 
won  the  Battle  of  the  Nile. 

Few  months  elapsed  before  Lady  Hamilton  was  again 
engaged  in  an  enterprise  requiring  courage  and  discretion 
of  the  highest  order. 

The  royal  family  of  Naples  were  in  extreme  peril.  The 
army  had  been  defeated,  though,  as  Nelson  observed,  "  the 
Neapolitan  officers  did  not  lose  much  honour,  for,  God 
knows,  they  had  not  much  to  lose;  but  they  lost  all  they 
had."  The  Court  was  filled  with  traitors,  the  city  with 
ruffians  and  assassins.  "  The  mind  of  man  could  not  fancy 
things  worse  than  they  were.'*  It  was  resolved  by  Nelson, 
Sir  William  and  Lady  Hamilton,  and  the  Queen,  that  the 
only  place  of  safety  for  the  royal  family  was  to  be  found 
in  Nelson's  ship,  and  that  a  retreat  to  Palermo  was  neces- 
sary. Had  this  design  been  discovered,  it  would  have 
involved  all  concerned  in  certain  and  immediate  destruction. 
Nelson  and  Sir  William  Hamilton  kept  away  from  Court. 

"The  whole  correspondence  [says  Nelson  in  his  letter  to  Lord 
St.  Vincent]  relative  to  this  important  business,  was  carried  on  with 
the  greatest  address  by  Lady  Hamilton  and  the  Queen,  who  being 
constantly  in  the  habit  of  correspondence,  no  one  could  suspect. 
It  would  have  been  highly  imprudent  either  in  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton or  myself  to  have  gone  to  Court,  as  we  knew  that  all  our 
movements  were  watched,  and  that  even  an  idea  was  entertained 
by  the  Jacobins  of  arresting  our  person  as  a  hostage — as  they  fool- 
ishly imagined — against  the  attack  of  Naples,  should  the  French 
get  possession  of  it." 

A  subterraneous  passage  led  from  the  Queen's  apartments 
to  the  shore.     This  was  explored    by    Nelson    and    Lady 


92  LADY    HAMILTON 

Hamilton,  and  through  this  passage,  for  several  nights,  the 
jewels  and  treasure  of  the  royal  family  were  conveyed.  On 
the  2 1  St  of  December,  at  half -past  eight  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing, three  barges,  with  Nelson  and  Captain  Hope  on  board, 
landed  at  a  comer  of  the  arsenal.  Leaving  Captain  Hope 
in  charge  of  the  boats,  Nelson  went  to  the  palace,  brought 
out  the  whole  of  the  royal  family,  placed  them  in  the  boats, 
and  within  an  hour  they  were  in  safety  on  the  deck  of  the 
Vanguard.  Lady  Hamilton  was  their  only  attendant.  But 
even  here,  though  in  safety,  their  distress  did  not  cease.  On 
the  24th,  says  Nelson,  "  it  blew  harder  than  I  ever 
experienced  since  I  have  been  at  sea." 

It  has  been  the  custom  to  speak  of  Lady  Hamilton  as  an 
"  artful "  woman.  We  can  find  nothing  to  justify  the 
epithet.  On  the  contrary,  we  believe  that  she  owed  much 
of  the  influence  she  acquired  over  the  minds  of  such  men 
as  Nelson,  St.  Vincent,  Troubridge,  and  Ball,  to  the  very 
opposite  qualities.  It  was  her  generous  and  impulsive  nature 
that  charmed  them  fully  as  much  as  her  beauty  or  her 
talents.  The  nature  of  her  intimacy  with  Nelson  will 
probably  remain  forever  an  enigma. 

What  does  the  world  owe  to  Lady  Hamilton?  England 
owes  her  the  victory  of  the  Nile.  That  one  item  is  so  large 
that  It  leads  one  to  forget  the  other  acts  which  earned  her 
the  gratitude,  not  of  Nelson  alone,  but  of  St.  Vincent,  Trou- 
bridge, and  the  other  "  Lions  of  the  Deep  "  who  shared  his 
glory.  The  world  owes  to  her  that  the  sister  of  Marie 
Antoinette  did  not  share  her  horrible  fate — that  another 
head,  as  fair  as  that  which  fell  into  the  basket  of  sawdust 


LADY    HAMILTON  93 

in  front  of  the  Tuileries  on  the  i6th  of  October,  1793,  did 
not  roll  on  the  scaffold  at  Naples  in  1799.  When  we  come 
to  take  the  account  as  it  stood  between  the  world  and  Lady 
Hamilton  when  it  finally  closed  in  18 15,  we  find  it 
strangely  changed  since  1791.  The  balance  has  turned.  It 
is  the  world,  it  is  humanity  that  is  the  debtor.  It  is  Eng- 
land that  is  bankrupt,  and  repudiates  her  debt. 

We  know  few  characters  of  which  it  is  so  difficult  to 
form  a  just  and  impartial  estimate  as  that  of  Lady  Hamilton. 
Happily  it  is  not  our  duty  to  mete  out  reward  or  punish- 
ment. Few,  if  any,  have  ever  been  exposed  to  such  dangers 
and  such  temptations.  The  most  precious  gifts  of  Provi- 
dence, bodily  and  mental,  which  were  lavished  upon  her  in 
profusion,  were  but  so  many  additional  snares  in  her  path. 
"  With  all  her  faults,"  says  one  who  was  by  no  means  dis- 
posed to  extenuate  these  faults,  "  her  goodness  of  heart  is 
undeniable.  She  was  the  frequent  intercessor  with  Nelson 
for  offending  sailors;  and  in  every  vicissitude  of  her  fortune 
she  manifested  the  warmest  affection  for  her  mother,  and 
showed  the  greatest  kindness  to  a  host  of  discreditable  rela- 
tives. Her  husband,  with  his  dying  breath,  bore  witness 
that,  during  "  the  ten  years  of  their  happy  union,  she  had 
never  in  thought,  word,  or  deed,  offended  him." 

Of  her  virtues,  unhappily,  prudence  was  not  one.  After 
the  death  of  Nelson,  and  the  disgraceful  disregard  of  her 
claims  by  the  Government,  her  affairs  became  greatly 
embarrassed.  Those  who  owed  wealth  and  honour  to 
Nelson,  and  who  had  sunned  themselves  in  her  prosperity, 
shrunk  away  from  her.     In  her  distress  she  wrote  a  most 


94  LADY    HAMILTON 

touching  letter  to  one  who  had  courted  her  smiles  in  other 
days,  the  Duke  of  Queensberry,  imploring  him  to  buy  the 
little  estate  at  Merton,  which  had  been  left  to  her  by 
Nelson,  and  thus  to  relieve  her  from  her  most  pressing 
embarrassments. 

The  cold-hearted  old  profligate  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
request.  In  1813,  Emma  Hamilton  was  a  prisoner  for  debt 
in  the  King's  Bench.  Deserted  by  the  great,  the  noble,  and 
the  wealthy,  abandoned  by  the  heir  of  his  title  and  the 
recipient  of  his  hard-earned  rewards,  she,  whom  Nelson  had 
left  as  a  legacy  to  his  country,  might  have  died  in  a  jail. 
From  this  fate  she  was  saved  by  one  whose  name  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  brilliant  circle  who  surrounded  her  but  a 
few  short  years  before.  Alderman  Joshua  Jonathan  Smith 
(let  all  honour  be  paid  to  his  plebeian  name)  redeemed  his 
share  of  his  country's  debt,  and  obtained  her  release.  She 
fled  to  Calais.  In  eighteen  months  more  the  strange,  event- 
ful life  of  Emma  Hamilton  was  over.  She  died  in  a  house, 
now  No.  Ill  Rue  Frangalse,  a  street  running  parallel  with 
the  southern  rampart  of  the  town. 


LA     DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE 

(1676—1753) 
CHARLES    AUGUSTIN    SAINTE-BEUVE 

THE  Duchesse  du  Maine  was  a  fay,  and  one  of  the 
most  singular:  she  deserves  to  be  studied,  she  and 
her  princely  life,  in  her  little  court  of  Sceaux,  in  which  she 
appears  to  us  as  one  of  the  extreme  and  oddest  productions 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  monarchical  regime  carried 
to  excess.  Born  in  1676,  the  Duchesse  du  Maine  died  in 
1753.  Louise-Benedicte  de  Bourbon  was  a  granddaughter 
of  the  Great  Conde.  In  excellence  of  language,  intelligence, 
and  thirst  for  knowledge,  she  announced  herself  at  an  early 
age:  like  her  brother,  she  had  sparks  of  the  spirit  of  her 
great  ancestor;  but,  like  her  sister,  she  was  almost  a  dwarf. 
When  the  Due  du  Maine  married  her,  having  to  choose 
between  the  Prince's  unmarried  daughters,  he  selected  her 
because  she  was  very  slightly  taller  than  her  elder  sister. 
Instead  of  calling  them  "  princesses  of  the  blood,"  people 
called  them  the  "  dolls  of  the  blood." 

The  Due  du  Maine  who,  in  1692,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
two,  thus  married  the  Great  Conde's  granddaughter,  aged 
sixteen,  was  the  oldest  of  the  natural  children  of  Louis 
XIV.  by  Madame  de  Montespan.  This  little  prince, 
tenderly  brought  up  by  Madame  de  Maintenon,  who  was 

95 


96  LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE 

a  real  mother  to  him,  had  been  formed  according  to  the 
ideals  of  the  foundress  of  St.  Cyr.  He  was  one  of  those 
characters  who  never  emancipate  themselves,  nor  attain 
entire  manhood.  Instructed,  but  without  real  vision,  he  was 
never  to  pass  the  exact  horizon  of  ideas  in  which  he  had  been 
framed  from  birth.  The  Duchess,  curious,  bold,  imperious 
and  fantastical,  was  not  to  pass  that  horizon  either,  and 
all  her  boldnesses,  all  her  flights  of  fancy  were  confined  to 
the  centre  of  an  artificial  and  magic  sphere. 

Scarcely  was  she  married  when  the  little  Duchess  laid 
her  hand  on  her  timid  husband  and  subjected  him  to  her 
will  in  everything.  She  dreamed  of  future  glory,  political 
greatness,  and  power,  and,  in  the  meanwhile,  she  wanted  to 
live  as  much  in  accordance  with  her  own  will  and  as  much 
as  a  sovereign  as  she  possibly  could,  rendering  as  little  as 
possible  to  others  and  indulging  all  her  own  caprices,  having 
a  court  of  her  own  in  which  no  rival  star  to  her  own  should 
be  allowed  to  shine.  She  did  not  completely  realise  these 
dreams  of  her  imagination  till  M.  du  Maine  bought  Sceaux 
from  the  heirs  of  M.  de  Seignelay  for  the  sum  of  900,000 
livres,  and  she  had  made  of  it  her  own  Chantilly,  Marly, 
and  Versailles  in  miniature  (1700). 

Among  the  Duke's  early  preceptors  was  a  M.  de  Male- 
zieu^  who  became  the  essential  personage  of  the  Duchess's 
court  and  her  oracle  of  every  sort.  For  twenty-five  years 
he  managed  to  fill  it  with  the  idea  of  his  merit  and 
sublimity.  M.  de  Malezieu  had  even  been  one  of  the 
causes  of  the  acquisition  of  Sceaux.  Already  rich  from  the 
liberalities  of  the  court,  he  had  a  fine  country  house  at 


LA  DUCHESSE  DU  MAINE. 


LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE  97 

Chateney,  and  there  he  received  the  Duchesse  du  Maine  in 
the  summer  of  1699,  and  gave  her  a  gallant  hospitality. 
There  were  games,  fetes,  and  continual  firevt^orks  in  her 
honour;  the  whole  affair  being  managed  with  a  certain  air 
of  innocence  of  the  Golden  Age.  The  people  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood took  part  in  these  joys  with  song  and  dance;  it 
was  during  the  first  gladness  over  the  Peace  of  Ryswick. 
There  the  Duchess  made  her  entry  into  that  life  of  faery 
and  mythology  which  was  so  much  to  her  taste  that  very 
soon  she  desired  no  other,  and  the  idea  occurred  to  her  to 
get  possession  of  the  whole  vale.  The  description  by  the 
Abbe  Genest,  one  of  Malezieu's  colleagues,  of  this  first 
visit  shows  us  the  origin  of  that  prolonged  game  of  shep- 
herdhood  which  was  about  to  become  the  very  existence  of 
the  Duchess.  There  were  gallant  surprises  at  every  step, 
and  innocent  games  every  hour;  they  played  at  nymphs  and 
shepherdesses;  they  even  precluded  future  prodigalities  by 
playing  at  economy.  "  The  Due  du  Maine  complained  as 
he  left  the  game  that  he  had  lost  two  crowns,  and  the 
princesses  praised  their  good  fortune  at  having  won  about 
as  much. 

In  these  fetes  and  those  that  were  repeated  at  the  same 
place  during  the  following  years,  we  find  M.  de  Male- 
zieu  doing  the  honours  of  his  house  to  perfection,  filling  and 
animating  all  this  little  sphere  like  a  universal  man.  Soon 
this  entire  pretty  vale  of  Sceaux  was  a  sort  of  park  of  the 
Duchess's,  her  pastoral  kingdom  and  her  Tempe.  She 
studied  Cartesianism  with  M.  de  Malezieu;  with  him  she 
read  Virgil,  Terence,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  and  could 


98  LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE 

soon  read  the  Latin  authors  in  the  original.  She  also 
studied  astronomy,  put  her  eye  to  the  telescope  and  micro- 
scope, and  in  fact  instructed  herself  in  everything  by 
passion,  whim,  or  caprice,  but  without  becoming  any  more 
generally  enlightened.  Through  it  all  she  played  comedy 
and  the  shepherdess  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night,  gave 
ideas  to  be  turned  into  verse  to  her  two  agents,  the  eternal 
Malezieu  and  the  Abbe  Genest,  invited  and  entertained  a 
crowd  of  the  elect,  occupied  everybody,  would  suffer  no 
delay  to  the  least  of  her  desires,  and  kept  going  with 
indefatigable  demonry  from  fear  of  having  to  reflect  or  be 
weary  for  a  single  instant.  Sleep  was  out  of  the  question 
for  the  Duchess:  she  had  been  persuaded  that  was  only  for 
simple  mortals. 

However,  the  last  war  of  Louis  XIV.,  the  War  of  the 
Spanish  Succession,  broke  out  and  embraced  Europe.  For- 
tune began  to  be  contrary;  the  nations  were  exhausted  with 
taxes  and  blood ;  the  Due  du  Maine  did  not  distinguish  him- 
self in  the  army  by  his  valour;  but  at  Sceaux,  the  Duchess, 
radiant  with  hope  and  pride,  amused  herself  and  played  on. 
Saint-Simon  says  she  swam  in  the  joys  of  her  future  great- 
ness. The  brilliance  and  splendour  of  what  were  called 
the  great  nights  of  Sceaux  belong  to  these  very  years  of 
disaster.  The  scandal  of  these  fetes  and  ruinous  entertain- 
ments became  so  much  the  greater,  or,  at  least,  the  more 
crying,  because  the  misfortunes  of  the  royal  family  were 
added  to  those  of  France;  but  the  deaths  of  the  principal 
heirs  brought  the  Due  du  Maine  close  to  the  supreme 
power,  and  even  to  the  throne.    Every  rung  less  in  the  order 


LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE  99 

of  legitimate  succession  was  a  stage  higher  in  the  scaffolding 
of  his  fortune.  We  know  that  the  weakness  of  Louis  XIV., 
obsessed  by  that  of  Madame  de  Maintenon,  that  nurse  who 
was  more  than  a  mother  to  the  Due  du  Maine,  went  so  far 
as  to  put  the  natural  children  on  an  equality  with  the  legiti- 
mate princes  of  the  blood  and  declare  them  at  last  able  to 
succeed  to  the  throne;  and  his  last  will,  If  It  had  been 
followed,  would  have  secured  for  the  Due  du  Maine  the 
most  influential  role  in  the  Regenecy. 

The  public  talked  scandal  about  the  president  Du 
Mesmes,  whom  the  Duchess  tried  to  attach  to  herself  in 
order  to  govern  the  Parliament  through  him.  In  fact, 
ambition  lurked  beneath  this  life  of  plays  and  comedy:  in 
this  pygmy  body,  In  this  extract  of  the  Great  Conde  there 
were  sparks  of  the  same  civil  fury.  We  must  never  speak 
of  sentiments  of  humanity  or  patriotism  in  those  beings 
apart  who  believed  themselves  to  be  of  Juplter*s  line.  The 
nation  and  the  world  were  created  for  them;  they  believed 
that  in  all  sincerity,  and  acted  with  a  high  hand  in  conse- 
quence. 

Madame  du  Maine  declared  this  on  the  eve  of  the  Re- 
gency (1714)  to  two  dukes  and  peers  of  France  whom 
she  had  summoned  to  Sceaux  to  discuss  eventualities,  as 
we  should  say,  but  as  she  did  not  say;  for  if  she  thought  ill 
she  talked  much  better  than  we  do.  She  wanted  to  assure 
herself  of  a  party  in  the  Parliament  and  to  arrange  for  sup- 
port in  case  of  cavil  that  might  arise  against  the  right  that 
she  thought  she  had  acquired.  When  she  saw  that  those 
she  was  addressing  were  reserved  and  on  their  guard,  she 


lOO  LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE 

flew  into  a  rage,  as  she  always  did  whenever  she  encountered 
the  slightest  resistance,  and  said  to  them  that  "  when  once 
one  has  acquired  the  ability  to  succeed  to  the  crown,  rather 
than  allow  oneself  to  be  deprived  of  it  one  ought  to  set  fire 
to  the  centre  and  the  four  corners  of  the  kingdom.**  There 
is  the  Great  Conde  unalloyed!  When  once  Louis  XIV. 
was  dead  and  the  testament  broken,  in  her  fierce  anger, 
she  was  ceaselessly  trying  to  put  these  evil  words  into  exe- 
cution. 

This  interrupted  the  fetes  at  Sceaux;  and  there  are  two 
distinct  periods  in  this  long  mythological  life  of  pleasures, 
in  what  I  call  this  life  between  two  hedges.  The  first  period 
is  that  of  hopes,  proud  intoxication,  and  ambition  concealed 
beneath  the  powers;  then  comes  the  second  period,  after  the 
aim  has  missed,  after  disappointment  and  mistake,  if  we  may 
use  these  words;  for,  even  after  such  a  fall,  after  the  depre- 
dation of  rank  and  outrage,  after  the  foiled  conspiracy  and 
prison,  this  incorrigible  nature,  having  returned  to  the  old 
haunts,  recovered  without  too  much  effort  the  same  pride, 
the  same  intoxication,  the  same  self-infatuation,  the  same 
faculty  of  active  and  noisy  illusion,  so  that  at  seventy  years 
of  age  she  found  herself  ever  young  and  still  a  shepherdess. 
No  one  with  so  much  intellect  has  ever  been  so  naively  a 
goddess  and  shepherdess  as  the  Duchesse  du  Maine.  She 
played  comedy  till  death,  without  ever  suspecting  that  it 
was  comedy. 

"Set  me  always  at  the  feet  of  the  Duchesse  du  Maine," 
wrote  Voltaire  from  Berlin  in  1752  (she  was  then  seventy- 
six  years  old).    "  She  is  an  elect  soul;  she  will  love  comedy 


LA    DUCHESSE    DU    MAINE  loi 

until  her  last  moment,  and  when  she  falls  ill  I  advise  you 
to  administer  some  fine  piece  of  writing  to  her  instead  of 
Extreme  Unction.  We  die  as  we  have  lived."  To  com- 
plete the  picture,  let  us  add  that  loving  comedy  to  such  a 
degree  and  playing  it  so  constantly,  she  played  it  badly,  and 
was  none  the  less  applauded. 


AGNES  SOREL 

(1409—1449) 

W.    H.    DAVENPORT    ADAMS 

Une  beaute  nominee  Agnes  Sorel; 

Jamais  I'amour  ne  forma  rien  de  tel, 

Imaginez  de  Flore  la  jeunesse, 

La  taille  et  I'air  de  la  nymphe  des  boit, 

Et  de  Venus  la  grace-enchanteresse, 

Et  de  1' Amour  le  seduisant  minois: 

L'art  d'Arachne,  le  doux  chant  des  Syrene^ 

Elle  avait  tout;  elle  aurait  dans  ses  chaines 

Mis  les  h6ro8,  les  sages,  et  les  rois.* 

Voltaire,  La  Pucelle, 

THIS  agreeable  portrait  of  the  heroine  who  divides 
with  Joan  of  Arc  the  love  and  gratitude  of  France, 
the  reader  may  wish  to  compare  with  the  more  luscious 
description  drawn  by  Chapelain: 

"  Let  glaces  lui  font  voir  un  front  pur  et  modeste 
Sur  qui  vers  chaque  tempe  k  bouillons  8epar6 
Trouvent  les  riches  flots  de  ses  cheveux  dor^s: 
Sous  lui  roulent  deux  yeux  dont  les  ardentes  flammes 
Mille  foudres  sans  bruit  s'elancent  dans  les  ames. 
Deux  yeux  6tincelants  qui,  pour  etre  sereins, 
N'en  font  pas  moins  trembler  les  plus  hardis  humains. 

•Agnes  Sorel  was  the  bright  lady's  name, 
And  never  Love  had  form'd  so  fair  a  dame. 
Think  but  of  Flora's  youth — the  wood-nymph*i  mien 
And  slender  figure— of  the  grace  serene 
Of  all  enchanting  Venus — Cupid's  spell, 
Arachne's  art,  the  Syren's  sweetest  strains,— 
All  these  were  hers.    So,  fetter'd  in  her  chaini, 
Heroes,  and  kings,  and  sages  gladly  fell. 
102 


AGNES    SOREL  103 

Au-dessous  se  fait  voir  en  chaque  jour  eclose 
Sur  un  fond  de  lys  blanc  une  vermeille  rose, 
Plus  bas  s'oflFre  et  s'avance  une  bouche  enfandne 
Qu'  une  petite  fosse  a  chaque  angle  termine, 
Et  dont  les  petits  bords  faits  d'un  coral  brillant, 
Couvrent  deux  blanc  fillets  de  perles  d'Orient. 
On  voit  que  sous  son  col  un  double  demi-globe 
Se  haussc  par  mesure  et  soulcve  sa  robe, 
L'un  et  I'autre  d'un  blanc  si  pur  et  si  parfait 
Qu'il  temit  la  blanchcur  de  la  neige  et  du  lait."  ♦ 

On  the  death  of  Henry  V.  in  1422,  his  infant  son, 
Henry  VI.,  was  proclaimed  King  of  England  and  France, 
in  the  two  capitals — London  and  Paris — and  it  seemed  as  if 
the  subjugation  of  France  by  the  valiant  islanders  was 
now  complete.  The  true  heir  of  Charles  VI.,  sunk  in 
voluptuous  indolence,  made  no  effort  to  regain  the  king- 
dom of  his  forefathers,  and  the  war  which  was  still  main- 
tained against  the  English  in  various  provinces  was  neither 
guided  nor  inspired  by  him  who  ought  to  have  been  its 
leader.       France  itself  was  divided  into  two  factions,  of 

♦  A  pure  and  modest  brow  the  glass  shows  to  her  ardent  gaze, 
A  brow,  where  o'er  each  temple  white,  the  swelling  tress  displays 
The  golden  glory  of  her  hair,  and  underneath  it  shine 
Two  eyes,  whose  noiseless  lightning  smites  the  soul  with  awe 

divine. 
And  even  when  those  sparkling  orbs  melt  in  a  calm  serene, 
They  may  not  by  the  boldest  be  with  heart  unshaken  seen: 
Lo,  too,  the  mirror  fond  reveals  each  cheek  where  rosy  red 
Is  o*er  the  lily's  snowy  white  in  soft  sweet  lustre  spread. 
The  pouting  mouth,  in  dimples  rich,  whose  lips  of  coral  curl 
Over  two  whitely-gleaming  rows  of  Oriental  pearl. 
And  low  beneath  the  taper  neck,  a  double  hemisphere 
That  gently  rises,  gently  falls,  and  stirs  the  bosom  gear. 
Each  swelling  globe  of  white  so  pure,  so  dazzling  in  its  sheen, 
That  purest  milk  and  Alpine  snow  are  put  to  shame,  I  ween. 


I04  AGNES    SOREL 

whom  the  Armagnacs  espoused  the  cause  of  Henry  VI., 
and  the  Royalists  struggled  with  little  heart  or  hope 
against  the  ever  increasing  torrent  of  English  ascendancy. 
Guided  by  the  political  genius  and  military  ability  of  the 
Duke  of  Bedford — ^the  King's  uncle,  and  his  Regent  in 
France — the  English  proceeded  steadily  and  surely,  from 
victory  to  victory,  capturing  town  after  town,  defeating  the 
French  and  their  allies,  the  Scotch,  on  the  glorious  fields  of 
Crevant  and  Verneuil  (July  i,  1423,  August  7,  1424), 
breaking  up  the  royal  army  into  detached  bands  of  ma- 
rauders who  were  easily  surrounded  and  destroyed  in  detail, 
and  gradually  establishing  the  authority  of  Henry  VI.  over 
the  whole  of  France  that  lay  north  of  the  Loire. 

The  rapid  progress  of  the  English  arms  was  facilitated 
by  two  great  events:  the  assassination  of  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy  at  the  Bridge  of  Montereau,  under  the  eyes  and 
with  the  tacit  consent  of  Charles  VH.,  which  forced  the 
Burgundians  into  a  close  alliance  with  England;  and  the 
temper  and  character  of  the  French  monarch,  which,  as  we 
have  hinted,  were  neither  calculated  to  animate  the  spirit 
nor  keep  alive  the  loyalty  of  his  subjects. 

At  this  crisis,  when  it  seemed  probable  that  France 
would  become  a  dependency  of  England,  there  arose  a  re- 
markable woman,  the  daughter  of  a  peasant  of  Lorraine, 
who  believing  herself  specially  marked  out  by  Heaven  for 
the  glorious  task  of  chastising  her  country's  enemies,  com- 
municated a  surprising  enthusiasm  to  her  comrades,  led 
them  to  the  fight,  relieved  Orleans  from  the  English 
leaguer,  crowned  Charles  VH.  at  Rheims  with  the  sacred 


AGNES    SOREL  105 

oil,  and  checked  the  flow  of  English  conquest  when  it  ap- 
peared most  irresistible.  After  a  brief  career  she  was 
taken  prisoner,  tried  by  prejudiced  and  suborned  judges  on 
the  charge  of  sorcery,  and  burned  to  death  at  Rouen  on 
the  30th  of  May,  1431. 

The  military  achievements  of  this  wonderful  heroine — 
one  of  the  purest  and  most  interesting  characters  in  the 
history  of  the  Middle  Ages — ^were  of  no  great  importance, 
but  the  impulse  she  lent  to  the  decaying  patriotism  of  her 
countrymen  was  of  the  highest  value  to  the  cause  of  Charles 
VII.  Joan  of  Arc,  however,  had  appealed  to  the  people, 
and  it  was  the  people  that  responded;  the  King  still  re- 
mained unmoved,  the  tool  of  his  favourites,  the  sport  of  his 
courtesans,  and  wanting  the  spirit  and  resolution  to  strike 
one  blow  for  his  crown.  This  Roitelet  de  Bourges  cared 
only  for  the  wine  cup  and  les  filles  d'amour.  Not  for  his 
people,  but  for  him  was  an  inspiration  needed,  and  this  in- 
spiration was  also  a  woman's  noble  work.  It  was  the 
work  of  Agnes  Sorel. 

Yes;  however  historians  may  seek  to  diminish,  or  explain 
away  the  incident,  it  is  certain  that  the  sudden  awakening 
of  Charles  VII.  from  his  voluptuous  lethargy  was  largely 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  "  lady  of  beauty " ;  and  the 
quatrain  which  Francis  I.  inscribed  beneath  her  portrait  did 
but  express  the  sentiment  of  all  France. 

"  Gentille  Agnis,  plus  d'honneur  tu  m^rite 
La  cause  etant  de  France  recouvrir, 
Que  ce  que  peut  dedans  un  cloitre  ouvrir 
Chose  nonain  ou  bien  devot  hermite." 


lo6  AGNES    SOREL 

The  anecdote  told  by  Brantome  in  his  Femmes  Galantes, 
is  not,  indeed,  authentic;  chronology  sternly  disproves  it. 
It  is  one  of  those  stories,  nevertheless,  which  everybody 
wishes  to  be  true.  **  The  beautiful  Agnes,"  says  the 
chronicler,  "perceiving  that  the  King,  Charles  VII.,  was 
enamoured  of  her,  and  that,  enervated  and  a  coward,  he 
cared  only  to  whisper  love  to  her,  and  made  no  account  of 
his  kingdom,  told  him  that  one  day  when  she  was  yet  a 
young  girl,  an  astrologer  had  predicted  to  her  that  she 
should  be  loved  and  protected  by  one  of  the  most  valiant 
and  courageous  kings  in  Christendom.  That  when  the 
King  honoured  her  with  his  love,  she  thought  he  was  the 
valorous  monarch  of  whom  she  had  been  foretold;  but  see- 
ing him  so  soft,  with  so  little  care  for  his  business,  she  now 
knew  that  she  was  mistaken,  and  that  the  King  so  courage- 
ous was  not  he,  but  the  King  of  England,  who  did  such  fine 
feats  of  arms,  and  took  so  many  beautiful  towns  under  his 
very  eyes  {a  sa  barbe).  *  Therefore,*  she  said,  *I  shall 
go  and  seek  him  out,  for  it  is  he  whom  the  astrologer  in- 
tended.* These  words  so  sharply  pricked  the  King's 
heart  that  he  began  to  weep,  and  thenceforward,  taking 
courage  and  abandoning  his  hunting  grounds  and  gardens, 
he  seized  the  bit  with  his  teeth;  so  that  by  his  fortune  and 
valour  he  drove  the  English  from  his  kingdom.** 

Olivier  de  la  Marche,  who  lived  at  the  court  of  Bur- 
gundy about  1444,  says  that  the  King  had  recently  raised 
a  poor  damsel,  a  gentlewoman,  named  Agnes  Sorel,  and 
endowed  her  with  such  splendour  and  such  power,  that  her 
condition  might  be  compared  to  the  great  princesses  of  the 


AGNES    SOREL  .  107 

kingdom ;  and  "  certes,"  he  says,  "  she  was  one  of  the 
handsomest  women  I  ever  saw,  and  did,  in  her  position, 
good  service  to  the  kingdom  of  France.  She  brought  to 
the  King's  notice  young  men  of  arms  and  gentle  com- 
panions (of  the  sword),  by  whom  he  was  afterwards  well 
served."  Du  Clerc,  writing  about  the  same  time,  says  that 
Agnes  died  of  poison  very  young. 

"  It  is  for  the  reader  to  judge,"  says  Hallam,  "  how  far 
these  passages  render  It  Improbable  that  Agnes  Sorel  was 
the  mistress  of  Charles  VI I.  at  the  siege  of  Orleans  in  1428, 
and  consequently,  whether  she  is  entitled  to  the  praise  which 
she  has  received,  of  being  Instrumental  In  the  deliverance  of 
France.  The  tradition,  however.  Is  as  ancient  as  Francis 
I.,  who  made  in  her  honour  a  quatrain  which  is  well 
known.  This  probably  may  have  brought  the  story  more 
into  vogue,  and  led  Mezeray,  who  was  not  very  critical,  to 
Insert  it  in  his  history,  from  which  It  has  passed  to  his  fol- 
lowers. Its  origin  was  apparently  the  popular  character 
of  Agnes.  She  was  the  Nell  Gwynn  of  France,  and 
justly  beloved,  not  only  for  her  charity  and  courtesy,  but 
for  bringing  forward  men  of  merit  and  turning  her  influ- 
ence, a  virtue  very  rare  in  her  class,  towards  the  public 
Interest." 

In  despite  of  the  authorities  adduced  by  Mr.  Hallam,  we 
believe  that  the  introduction  of  Agnes  Sorel  to  the  court  of 
Charles  VII.  took  place  at  an  earlier  date  than  he  allows. 
Monstrelet's  statement  only  shows  that  she  had  been  a  cer- 
tain time  in  the  Queen's  service,  not  that  she  had  been  but 
five  years  at  court.       Olivier  de  la  Marche  says,  in  1444, 


io8  AGNES    SOREL 

that  Charles  had  recently  (nouvellements)  raised  her  to  tri- 
umph and  power;  but  the  old  chroniclers  wrote  very  loosely 
about  time  and  dates;  and,  moreover,  it  is  certain  that  the 
King  had  received  her  into  his  favour  long  before  he  dis- 
tinguished her  with  public  honours. 

A  negotiation  had  been  opened  with  Philip  le  Hardi, 
through  the  intervention  of  the  Duchess  of  Lorraine  and 
Bar,  Queen  of  Sicily,  a  woman  of  an  active  mind  and  far- 
seeing  intellect.  Agnes  Sorel,  her  maid  of  honour,  was 
the  devoted  intermediary  (says  Capefigue),  and,  so  to  speak, 
the  hostage  given  to  the  King.  The  labour  was  difficult 
and  delicate,  for  the  Duke  and  the  King  had  much  to  for- 
give and  forget;  but  Charles  granted  all  the  Duke  could 
ask,  and  at  length  the  gallant  soldiers  of  Burgundy  were 
ranged  on  the  side  of  France  against  their  old  allies,  the 
English.  The  treaty  of  Arras,  which  concluded  the  long 
revolt  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  was  signed  on  the  2ist  of 
September,  1435. 

From  this  epoch  may  be  dated  the  gradual  awakening  of 
Charles  VII.  to  a  sense  of  his  duties  and  responsibilities  as 
sovereign  of  a  land  that  was  struggling  against  foreign  op- 
pression; and  it  is  impossible  not  to  connect  with  it  the 
operation  of  the  influence  of  Agnes  Sorel.  The  King  first 
took  the  field  in  July,  1437,  when  he  assembled  an  army 
at  Gien,  of  six  or  seven  thousand  men,  and  undertook  the 
siege  of  Montereau.  The  siege  lasted  six  weeks.  "  The 
King  himself,"  says  Monstrelet,  "  in  his  own  person  under- 
went much  labour"  ;  and  other  writers  bear  testimony  to 
the    brilliant    valour    he    displayed.       Thenceforward    he 


AGNES    SOREL  109 

worked  for  the  deliverance  of  his  kingdom  with  astonish- 
ing vigour,  resolution,  and  ability.  Thenceforward  he 
showed  a  determination  to  re-establish  order,  to  subdue  his 
enemies,  to  sacrifice  his  repose  and  pleasures  to  his  duty,  and 
a  remarkable  ability  in  the  choice  of  means  to  arrive  at  ends 
so  desirable. 

Money  is  the  sinews  of  war,  and  it  is  possible  that 
Charles  VII.  might  have  entered  the  field  at  an  earlier  date 
if  he  had  been  provided  with  the  needful  resources.  He 
could  not  now  have  accomplished  his  task  had  not  a  man 
who  was  at  once  wealthy  and  patriotic,  and  whose  name 
ought  to  share  the  gratitude  of  France  with  those  of  her 
two  heroines,  come  to  his  aid  with  a  noble  liberality. 

Jacques  Cceur  was  named  "  Master  of  the  Mint."  He 
afterwards  received  the  official  title  of  "  Treasurer  to  the 
King,"  and  undertook  the  entire  control  of  the  finances. 
Protected  by  the  Duchess  of  Lorraine,  the  friend  and  de- 
voted servant  of  Agnes  Sorel,  a  loyal  subject  and  an  earnest 
patriot,  he  set  himself  to  work  to  develop  the  resources  of 
the  kingdom.  On  his  own  credit  he  obtained  loans  from 
the  bankers  of  Milan,  Venice,  and  Genoa.  He  fixed  a 
legal  value  upon  money;  settled  the  imposition  of  certain 
regular  taxes;  and  having  provided  himself  with  the  neces- 
sary means,  called  together  the  bands  of  guerillas  scattered 
over  France,  united  them  into  one  body,  and  secured  their 
discipline  and  obedience  by  regular  pay  for  themselves  and 
their  leaders. 

The  influence  of  Agnes  Sorel  over  Charles  VII.  was  no 
longer  a  secret.       Happily  for  France  it  was  always  exer- 


no  AGNES    SOREL 

cised  for  noble  ends.  At  the  voice  of  the  romantic  beauty, 
the  French  chivalry  arose  and  gathered  round  their  King. 
She  still  retained  her  modest  position  as  maid  of  honour  to 
the  Queen  of  Sicily,  but  as  the  King's  mistress  her  power 
was  irresistible.  Possessing,  like  all  clever  women,  a 
quick  eye  for  manly  merit,  she  brought  forward  the  young 
and  energetic  scions  of  the  nobility  of  France,  who  attached 
themselves  to  the  King  with  a  passion  of  generous  loyalty, 
unknown  to  the  aged  Knights  whose  heads  had  grown  grey 
in  intrigue  and  struggles  for  supremacy  among  themselves. 
There  are  extant  some  letters  which  show  the  almost  regal 
style  adopted  by  the  powerful  beauty,  and  it  is  pleasant  to 
find  them  breathe  a  very  gentle  and  womanly  feeling. 
Thus,  she  writes  to  the  magistrate  of  Chesnaye-en-Bois : 

"  Monsieur  le  Prevot,  I  have  heard  and  understood  that  some 
men  of  Chesnaye  have  been  confined  by  you  on  suspicion  of  having 
taken  some  wood  from  the  forest  of  Chesnaye.  Whereupon,  having 
been  told  that  the  said  men  are  poor  and  wretched  persons,  I  wish, 
Monsieur  le  Prevot,  that  the  said  process  be  not  carried  any  further. 
By  attending  to  this  without  delay,  you  will  please  your  good 
mistress.  "  Agnes." 

To  Mademoiselle  de  Bonneville,  "  my  good  friend  "  : 

"  Mademoiicllc,  my  good  friend, — I  commend  myself  heartily  to 
you.  Pray  you  to  be  kind  enough  to  give  the  bearer,  Christopher, 
my  grey  gown  lined  with  white,  and  all  the  pairs  of  gloves  which  you 
can  find  in  my  house;  the  said  Christopher  having  lost  my  trunk 
{mon  coffret).  You  will  please,  moreover,  to  receive  my  grey- 
hound. Carpet,  whom  you  will  be  good  enough  to  carefully  tend, 
and  not  let  him  go  to  the  hunt  with  any  one,  for  he  neither  obeys 
whistle  nor  call,  and  might  be  lost,  which  would  trouble  me  greatly, 


AGNES    SOREL  m 

and  having  commended  him  to  you,  my  good   friend,  would   not 
please  me.     Praying  God  that  he  will  keep  you  in  his  grace,  etc. 

"  Agnes." 

The  great  influence  which  Agnes  Sorel  enjoyed  with 
Charles  VII.  was  owing  as  much  to  her  daring  spirit,  her 
lofty  thoughts,  and  her  brilliant  conversation,  as  to  her 
surpassing  personal  beauty.  Her  bright  and  powerful 
mind  commanded  the  lighter  intellect  and  more  fickle  brain 
of  the  King;  and  inspired  him  in  many  of  the  most  critical 
moments  of  his  troubled  career.  "  His  love  for  her,"  says 
Jean  Chartier,  "  was  for  her  youthful  levities,  her  sports, 
her  gaieties,  her  honourable  and  polished  language,  and  also 
because  among  the  beauties  of  the  court  she  was  the  young- 
est and  the  most  beautiful.  She  was,  moreover,  esteemed 
because  she  was  of  a  very  charitable  life,  liberal  and  large 
in  her  alms,  distributing  freely  of  her  wealth  to  the  poor  of 
the  church." 

She  thus  became  the  inspiration  of  the  gay  chivalry  of 
France,  and  the  muse  that  whispered  of  high  and  holy  deeds 
to  its  King;  nor  did  she  ever  cease  to  stimulate  him  to  the 
admirable  enterprise  of  rescuing  his  kingdom  from  a  for- 
eign yoke,  even  amidst  the  splendid  festivities  of  Bourges 
and  Chinon. 

The  progress  of  the  French  arms  was  brilliant  during  the 
year  1437,  and  the  English  were  expelled  from  Melun  and 
Fontainebleau,  Bagnolet  and  Pantin,  and  finally  from  the 
city  of  Paris,  which  had  been  so  long  devoted  to  their  cause. 
The  King's  advisers  urged  upon  him  the  advantage  to  be 
derived  from  his  presence  in  the  capital,  and  thither  accord- 


112  AGNES    SOREL 

ingly  he  repaired.  On  the  I2th  of  November,  he  slept  in 
the  Abbey  of  Saint  Denis,  and  on  the  morrow  was  met  by 
the  magistrates  and  chief  men  of  Paris,  who  conducted  him 
through  the  city  with  the  same  pomp  and  ceremony  that 
had  welcomed  Henry  VL  seven  years  before.  The  return 
of  the  King  was  resplendent  with  beauty,  youth,  and  valour ; 
but  beside  Charles  VII.  the  spectators  had  eyes  for  none 
but  his  lovely  mistress.  There  were  still  enemies  of  the 
King  in  Paris,  and  many  murmurs  rose  against  the  beauti- 
ful Agnes,  whom  the  Bishop  of  Therouine  had  contuma- 
ciously designated  "  the  new  Herodlas  "  and  "  the  beast  of 
the  Apocalypse."  When  she  was  informed  of  these  things, 
she  exclaimed  with  transient  anger :  "  These  Parisians  are 
but  villains;  had  I  known  they  would  have  paid  me  so  little 
honour,  I  would  never  have  set  foot  in  their  city."  It  was 
not,  however,  against  the  woman  that  they  murmured,  but 
against  the  costly  splendour  and  luxurious  folly  of  which 
they  chose  to  consider  her  the  type. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Charles  VII.  bestowed  upon  his 
favourite  the  pleasant  manor  and  castle  of  Beaute-sur- 
Marne,  whence  she  was  afterward  called  la  Dame  de 
Beaute — a  flattering  cognomen  that  was  peculiarly  appro- 
priate to  her  personal  charms. 

"  To  the  Chateau  de  Beaute,"  says  Capefigue,  "  Charles 
VII.  often  repaired  to  rekindle  his  courage  in  the  midst  of 
the  sorrows  and  discouragements  of  his  restoration.  The 
King  held  Paris;  but  the  English  were  still  masters  of 
Normandy,  Guienne,  and  all  Gascony.  At  ten  leagues 
from  Paris,  the  standard  of  the  leopard  displayed  itself  all 


AGNES    SOREL  113 

rampant  with  pride,  and  Pontoise  was  the  main  rendez-vous 
of  the  English.  A  terrible  disorder  reigned  in  the  armies 
of  Charles  VII.  A  further  source  of  trouble  was  the  riots 
of  the  Jacquerie — a  tumultuous  outbreak  of  peasants  and 
serfs;  while  the  chiefs  of  the  great  companies  aspired  to  re- 
sume their  ancient  supremacy  in  the  council  of  Charles  VII. 
It  was  Agnes  Sorel  who  now  restored  to  the  King  all  his 
energy.  As  the  taxes  yielded  a  scanty  return,  and  the 
States-General,  convened  at  Orleans,  would  grant  no 
money  but  upon  severe  conditions,  Agnes  Sorel  engaged 
her  friend,  Jacques  Coeur,  to  make  some  heavy  advances, 
even  to  ten  millions  of  crowns,  to  recover  Normandy  by 
force  of  arms. 

"  The  definitive  triumph  of  the  King  in  the  war  de- 
pended upon  the  capture  of  Pontoise,  occupied  by  the  Eng- 
lish under  the  heroic  Talbot.  The  King  was  surrounded 
by  the  flower  of  his  chivalry — Saint  Paul,  La  Hire,  Xain- 
trailles,  and  Chabannes  himself.  Agnes  Sorel  repaired  to 
his  tent  to  rouse  his  enterprise  and  maintain  his  resolution." 

In  the  splendour  of  Agnes  Sorel's  triumphant  life,  there 
was,  nevertheless,  one  dark  and  heavy  cloud:  the  persistent 
hate  of  the  Dauphin,  afterward  the  subtle  and  merciless 
Louis  XL  It  arose  in  some  measure  from  political 
causes,  and  partly  from  the  affection  which  had  existed  be- 
tween her  and  Margaret  of  Scotland,  the  Dauphin's  wife, 
whom  he  cruelly  suspected  of  infidelity;  and  partly  from  the 
indignation  with  which  he  professed  to  behold  the  prefer- 
ence publicly  accorded  by  the  King  to  the  mistress  and  the 
coldness  shown  to  his  mother.      But  did  this  filial  devotion 


114  AGNES    SOREL 

spring  from  a  pure  motive,  or  was  it  the  expression  of  his 
hatred  for  her  who  firmly  repressed  the  revolts  contrived 
by  the  intrigues  of  his  criminal  ambition?  In  one  of  his 
fits  of  passion  he  even  ventured  to  insult  the  Lady  of 
Beauty  with  a  blow.  She  immediately  retired  from  court 
and  took  up  her  residence  in  the  royal  Chateau  de  Loches, 
in  Touraine.  A  powerful  party  was  formed  against  her, 
and  ceasing  to  take  any  active  share  in  the  direction  of 
public  afFairs,  she  spent  her  latter  days  either  at  Loches,  or 
in  the  sweet  retirement  of  her  Castle  of  Beaute  sur  la 
Mame. 

Her  career  had  been  brilliant;  it  was  fated  to  be  brief. 
Charles  VIL  was  staying  at  the  Abbey  of  Jumiege,  early  in 
the  year  1449,  and  Agnes  had  repaired  to  the  neighbouring 
grange,  La  Ferme  du  Mesnil,  when  she  was  seized  with  an 
illness,  so  sudden  that  it  suggested  to  her  contemporaries 
the  operation  of  poison,  and  at  a  later  period,  when  Jacques 
Cceur  met  with  the  usual  fate  of  illustrious  patriots,  he  was 
accused  of  the  crime.  Throughout  the  famous  beauty's 
life  he  had  been  her  constant  friend;  after  her  death,  he 
became,  by  her  desire,  her  testamentary  executor.  It  was 
improbable,  therefore,  that  he  should  be  guilty  of  so  foul  a 
deed — a  deed,  moreover,  by  which  he  could  profit  nothing, 
but  only  deprive  himself  of  a  powerful  protector. 


LADY    BLESSINGTON 

(1789—1849) 
H.  BARTON   BAKER 

THERE  was  something  of  romance  and  much  of  sad- 
ness in  Lady  Blessington*s  career.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  an  Irish  gentleman  named  Power,  and  was 
bom  at  Knochbrit,  near  Clonmel,  in  Tipperary,  in  the  year 
1789  or  1790.  Her  father  was  a  man  of  violent  and  even 
brutal  temper;  and  her  mother,  although  descended  from 
one  of  the  first  families  of  Ireland,  the  famous  Desmonds, 
does  not  appear  to  have  been,  by  any  means,  a  woman  of 
refinement.  Marguerite  was  a  sickly  child;  every  one 
prophesied  she  would  not  live;  and  there  was  little  sym- 
pathy between  her  and  her  rudely  healthful  brothers  and 
sisters.  Left  alone,  unable  to  share  in  their  sports,  she 
became  precocious  and  dreamy,  and  would  sit  all  day  weav- 
ing fantastic  stories  In  her  mind,  to  which,  when  the  family 
gathered  round  the  peat  at  night,  they  would  listen  won- 
derlngly,  and  frequently,  on  winter  evenings,  the  neighbours 
would  drop  in,  and  very  soon  the  infant  improvisatore  be- 
came the  marvel  for  miles  around.  No  attempt  was  made 
to  give  her  any  regular  education;  and  all  the  instruction 
she  received  during  these  early  years  was  from  a  friend  of 
her  parents,  a  Miss  Dwyer,  who  took  a  great  interest  in 

115 


Ii6  LADY    BLESSINGTON 

the  pretty,  delicate  child.  When  she  was  about  seven  or 
eight  years  old,  the  father,  who  was  a  staunch  supporter  of 
the  Government,  was  appointed  to  the  magistracy  at  Clon- 
mel,  and  thither  they  removed.  It  was  the  time  of  the 
rebellion,  and  Power  was  one  of  the  most  savage  and  in- 
exorable of  the  rebel-hunters.  The  peasantry  retaliated 
his  cruelties  by  killing  his  cattle  and  burning  his  farm 
produce.  He  seems  to  have  been  as  great  a  terror  at  home 
as  he  was  abroad,  and  to  have  treated  his  wife  and  children 
almost  as  badly  as  he  did  the  rebels.  He  was  a  buck,  a 
blood,  who  like  a  "  rale  Irish  gentleman  "  of  the  time,  lived 
at  double  the  rate  of  his  income,  and  squandered  his  means  in 
whisky,  claret,  and  deviltry.  Such  were  the  strange  in- 
fluences under  which  the  future  Queen  of  the  literary  salon 
grew  up  to  womanhood. 

At  some  dancing  parties,  where  the  officers  of  the  garri- 
son used  to  meet  the  girls  of  Clonmel,  Marguerite  was  in- 
troduced to  a  Captain  Farmer,  a  rich  Englishman,  who  at 
once  became  so  desperately  enamoured  of  her  that,  although 
she  was  then  scarcely  fifteen,  he  made  proposals  for  her 
hand.  The  girl  not  only  disliked  him,  but  had  a  positive 
dread  of  him.  Yet  the  parents,  now  upon  the  brink  of 
irretrievable  ruin,  eagerly  caught  at  his  offer,  and  coerced 
her  into  accepting  it.  They  could  not  have  consigned  her 
to  a  more  melancholy  fate;  there  was  insanity  in  the  blood 
of  the  husband ;  he  was  subject  to  fits  of  ungovernable  fury, 
in  which  he  would  beat  her  and  pinch  her,  and  sometimes 
lock  her  up  without  food  and  leave  her  to  famish.  Three 
months  after  marriage   she  left  his  house  and  returned  to 


LADY  BLESSINGTON. 


LADY    BLESSINGTON  I17 

her  father*s.  Small  welcome  and  little  comfort  did  she 
receive  beneath  that  roof.  Soon  afterwards  Captain  Far- 
mer, in  one  of  his  paroxysms  of  fury,  drew  his  sword  upon 
his  colonel  and  had  to  sell  out.  He  then  entered  the  East 
India  Company's  service,  but  before  quitting  England  a 
formal  separation  was  arranged  between  him  and  his  wife. 
Upon  the  years  that  passed  between  this  period  and  her 
second  marriage,  Lady  Blessington's  biographers  have  been 
extremely  reticent,  and  the  present  writer  has  no  desire  to 
depart  from  their  example.  She  did  not  long  remain  at 
Clonmel,  but  went  to  reside  with  an  aunt,  with  whom  she 
remained  some  time.  In  1807,  we  hear  of  her  in  Dublin, 
a  little  later  she  is  in  England.  In  1816,  Farmer  returned 
to  his  native  country  to  meet  his  death.  It  was  somewhere 
about  this  period  that  his  widow,  then  residing  in  Man- 
chester Square,  first  met  the  Earl  of  Blessington.  She 
was  at  the  time  about  twenty-seven  years  of  age,  and  in  the 
full  perfection  of  her  irresistible  beauty  and  fascination;  he 
was  some  nine  years  her  senior,  a  widower,  a  kind  man,  of 
ancient  lineage,  being  descended  from  the  Scotch  Stuarts 
and  the  Norman  Mountjoys,  with  a  penchant  for  private 
theatricals,  splendid  dresses,  and  gaudiness  of  all  kinds. 
His  London  residence  was  in  St.  James's  Square,  which, 
after  his  marriage  with  Marguerite  Farmer,  became  the 
rendez-vous  of  all  the  celebrities  of  the  day — of  royal  dukes, 
ministers,  actors,  divines,  artists,  literary  men;  of  such  men 
as  Canning,  Castlereagh,  Lansdowne,  Palmerston,  Russell, 
Brougham,  Erskine,  Kemble,  Mathews,  Lawrence,  Wilkie, 
Rogers,  Moore,  and  Dr.  Parr. 


ii8  LADY    BLESSINGTON 

In  1822,  my  lord  and  my  lady  started  upon  the  grand 
tour.  "  No  Irish  nobleman,  probably,"  says  a  biographer, 
"  and  certainly  no  Irish  King,  ever  set  out  on  his  travels 
with  such  a  retinue  of  servants,  with  so  many  vehicles  and 
appliances  of  all  kinds  for  ease,  comfort,  and  luxurious  en- 
joyment." They  carried  with  them  the  batterie  de 
cuisine,  which  had  served  an  entire  club,  and  a  cook  who 
had  been  chef  to  an  emperor.  Their  compagnons  de  voy- 
age were  one  of  my  lady's  sisters;  young  Charles  Mathews, 
whom  the  Earl,  out  of  friendship  for  the  father,  had  offered 
to  take  charge  of,  that  he  might  pursue  his  architectural 
studies  in  Italy;  and  a  young  French  officer,  named  Count 
d'Orsay. 

Several  years  were  consumed  in  these  travels.  In  1828, 
we  find  them  on  their  return  visit  to  Paris,  residing  in 
the  house  which  had  belonged  to  Ney  in  the  Rue  de  Bour- 
bon, and  which  still  bore  his  name.  It  was  a  luxurious 
place  to  die  in,  and  for  little  other  purpose  had  my  lord 
appointed  it.  He  had  been  to  London  to  vote  for  the 
Catholic  Emancipation,  when,  a  day  or  two  after  his  re- 
turn, he  had  an  attack  of  apoplexy,  of  which  he  expired 
on  May  23,  1829.  He  left  his  widow  two  thousand  a 
year,  the  lease  of  the  house  in  St.  James's  Square,  his  car- 
riages, and  a  portion  of  the  plate.  The  bulk  of  the  prop- 
erty, terribly  embarrassed  by  his  extravagances,  and  by-and- 
by  to  be  disposed  of  under  the  Encumbered  Estates  Acts, 
went  to  his  children  by  his  first  marriage.  In  1827,  he 
had  married  one  of  his  daughters  to  Count  d'Orsay.  It 
proved  a  most  unhappy  union;  there  was  no  affection  on 


LADY    BLESSINGTON  119 

either  side,  and,  worse  still,  the  Count  was  passionately  in 
love  with  the  woman  whom  he  could  not  marry. 

A  few  years  after  the  EarFs  death  there  was  a  regular 
separation  between  the  ill-assorted  pair.  That  d'Orsay 
was  the  handsomest  man,  the  most  perfect  exquisite  of  the 
day,  the  supreme  leader  of  fashion,  to  have  made  for  whom 
was  a  sufficient  reputation  to  ensure  the  fortune  of  any 
tailor  or  bootmaker;  that  his  equipages  were  the  marvel,  the 
envy,  the  despair  of  Rotten  Row,  are  facts  too  well  known 
to  be  dwelt  upon  here.  But  he  was  far  from  being  a  mere 
brainless  fop;  he  was  a  wit,  a  conversationalist,  an  amateur 
artist  of  some  pretension,  and  a  good-hearted,  generous  man 
besides. 

Lady  Blessington  did  not  return  to  England  until  1830. 
As  it  was  impossible  to  live  in  St.  James's  Square  upon 
£2,000  a  year,  she  took  a  small  house  in  Seamore  Place, 
Mayfair,  while  d'Orsay  and  his  wife  took  another  close  by 
in  Curzon  Street.  In  1836,  she  removed  to  that  residence 
which  is  so  indissolubly  connected  with  her  name,  Gore 
House,  Kensington.  The  Albert  Hall  and  the  Horti- 
cultural Society's  Gardens  now  occupy  the  site  of  the  house 
and  grounds,  which  were  once  the  favourite  resort  of  all 
the  genius  of  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Louis  Napoleon  was  a  constant  visitor  at  Lady  Bless- 
ington's.  Planche,  in  his  Reminiscences,  describes  him, 
when  dining  there  on  the  August  evening  in  1840  preced- 
ing the  day  on  which  he  left  England  to  make  his  absurd 
descent  upon  Boulogne,  as  wearing  a  black  silk  handker- 
chief, in  which  was  fastened  a  pin,  the  head  of  which  was  a 


I20  LADY    BLESSINGTON 

diamond  eagle,  with  spread  wings,  clutching  a  thunderbolt 
of  rubies;  and  relates  how  he  invited  the  company  to  dine 
with  him  in  the  Tuileries  on  that  day  twelvemonth.  By  a 
strange  coincidence.  Gore  House  was  the  first  place  at  which 
he  dined  upon  his  arrival  in  London  after  his  escape  from 
Ham. 

And  the  presiding  genius  was  worthy  of  those  who  paid 
homage  at  her  shrine.  Her  splendid  form  and  beautiful 
face — ^beautiful  not  only  in  features,  but  in  its  charm  and 
mobility  of  expression — ^the  ringing  laugh,  as  delicious  and 
irresistible  as  Jordan's,  were  the  least  of  her  attractions. 
Her  manner,  her  tact  in  setting  every  guest  at  his  ease,  and, 
however  obscure  he  might  be,  drawing  him  forth  and  ren- 
dering him  pleased  with  himself,  were  simply  enchanting. 
"  She  seldom  spoke  at  any  length,"  says  her  biographer,  Mr. 
Madden ;  "  never  bored  her  hearers  with  disquisitions,  nor 
dogmatised  on  any  subject,  and  very  rarely  played  the 
learned  lady  in  discourse.  She  conversed  with  all  around 
her  in  a  give-and-take  mode  of  interchanging  of  sentiments. 
She  expressed  her  opinions  in  short,  smart,  and  telling  sen- 
tences; brilliant  things  were  thrown  off  with  the  utmost 
ease;  one  bon  mot  followed  another,  without  pause  or 
effort,  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  then,  while  her  wit  and 
humour  were  producing  their  desired  effect,  she  would  take 
care,  by  an  apt  word  or  gesture  provocative  of  mirth  and 
communicativeness,  to  draw  out  the  persons  who  were  best 
fitted  to  shine  in  company,  and  leave  no  intelligence,  how- 
ever humble,  without  affording  it  an  opportunity  and  an 
encouragement  to  make  some  display  even  in  a  single  trite 


LADY    BLESSINGTON  121 

remark  or  telling  observation  in  the  course  of  conversation." 
Nor  were  her  charms  confined  to  beauty  and  intellectual 
graces.  The  same  writer  describes  how  munificent  she 
was  in  her  character. 

Since  1822,  when  she  produced  her  first  volume,  Sketches 
and  Scenes  in  the  Metropolis,  and  more  especially  since  the 
Earl's  death,  she  had  been  constantly  engaged  in  literary 
pursuits.  None  of  her  books,  however,  have  taken  any 
permanent  place  In  literature;  none  of  her  fashionable  nov- 
els are  now  ever  read ;  and  even  upon  their  first  production 
several,  at  least,  were  by  no  means  successful.  The  most 
noted  of  her  books  was  her  Conversations  with  Lord  Byron, 
published  after  the  poet's  death. 

This  was  the  time  when  splendidly  bound  and  bepictured 
Annuals  were  all  the  rage;  Lady  Blessington  edited  two  or 
three  of  these,  and  through  several  years  not  one  appeared 
without  containing  stones  or  verses  from  her  pen;  and,  as 
titled  contributors  were  those  most  esteemed  by  the  patrons 
of  this  species  of  literature,  she  was  very  well  paid  for  such 
lucubrations.  When  the  Daily  News  was  first  started, 
she  arranged  with  the  proprietor  to  supply  the  on-dits  of 
the  fashionable  and  political  world,  of  which  she  was  In  the 
position  to  gain  the  earliest  Intelligence,  for  £400  a  year. 
Jerdan  says  that  her  pen  brought  her  In  from  £2,000  to 
£3,000  a  year;  perhaps  half  the  last-named  sum  would  more 
nearly  represent  the  truth. 

But  even  with  this  and  her  Income  of  £2,000  In  was  im- 
possible to  nearly  keep  pace  with  the  expenditure  at  Gore 
House,  which  was  never  less  than  £4,000;  and  then,  In  the 


122  LADY    BLESSINGTON 

days  of  Irish  distress,  the  income,  which  was  chiefly  derived 
from  property  in  that  country,  frequently  fell  short.  For 
years  her  life  was  a  splendid  misery — drudging  at  literature, 
making  vain  efforts  to  curtail  expenditure,  passing  sleep- 
less nights,  yet  ever  obliged  to  meet  the  world  with  an  in- 
souciant smile.  During  two  years  before  the  crash  came, 
they  lived  in  almost  a  state  of  siege  from  creditors;  for 
d'Orsay,  who  had  at  first,  for  the  sake  of  les  convenances, 
resided  in  a  small  house  close  by,  had  by  this  time  taken  up 
his  abode  at  Gore  House.  His  debts  alone  are  said  to 
have  amounted  to  £107,000,  besides  £13,000  in  which  he 
was  indebted  to  private  friends.  He  could  not  leave  the 
grounds  except  on  Sundays,  or  after  dusk,  for  fear  of  ar- 
rest, and  every  visitor  was  carefully  scrutinised  before  he 
was  admitted,  lest  he  should  prove  to  be  a  myrmidon  of  the 
law.  At  length  the  bailiifs  contrived  to  make  an  entrance; 
the  Count  had  to  fly  at  a  moment's  notice,  with  only  a 
valet  and  a  portmanteau,  and  make  for  France. 

There  was  nothing  saved  from  the  wreck  except  the 
Countess's  portrait  by  Chalon;  all  her  magnificent  jewel- 
lery, her  splendid  furniture,  her  rare  porcelain,  her  sculp- 
ture, her  plate,  her  books,  her  pictures  were  swept  away  by 
the  creditors.  She  refused  all  offers  of  assistance  from 
friends;  for  she  was  weary  of  the  false  position  which  she 
had  struggled  so  hard  to  maintain  through  all  these  years, 
and  it  was  almost  a  relief  to  have  the  terrible  strain  relaxed, 
even  by  ruin.  The  gross  amount  of  the  sale  was  over 
thirteen  thousand  pounds,  but  the  realised  amount  was 
under  twelve  thousand. 


LADY    BLESSINGTON  123 

She  retired  to  Paris,  and  took  apartments  in  the  Champs 
Elysees;  a  few  friends  rallied  round  her,  but  the  greater 
number  behaved  in  the  usual  fashion  of  the  world.  Not 
for  long,  however,  was  she  destined  to  experience  the  bit- 
terness and  humiliations  of  fallen  greatness:  five  weeks 
after  her  arrival  in  France,  on  June  4,  1849,  she  was  struck 
down  by  apoplexy  and  heart  disease. 

In  his  exile  and  poverty,  Louis  Napoleon  had  possessed 
no  truer  or  more  helpful  friends  than  those  of  Gore  House, 
and  by  his  interest  and  untiring  efforts  d'Orsay  had  done 
no  little  towards  promoting  his  election  to  the  Presidency. 
But  he  experienced  the  proverbial  ingratitude  of  princes. 
When  he  and  the  Countess  arrived  in  Paris,  the  President 
invited  them  to  dine  at  the  Tuileries,  but  showed  little 
other  recognition  of  their  past  services.  He  probably  owed 
d'Orsay  too  much  to  be  grateful,  for  to  a  man  in  his  posi- 
tion the  sense  of  overweighted  obligations  is  irksome  and 
embarrassing.  D'Orsay  also  offended  him  by  publicly 
condemning  the  coup  d'etaU  In  1852,  just  before  his 
death,  he  was  appointed  to  some  post  in  connection  with  the 
Fine  Arts,  and  that  was  all  the  benefit  he  received  from  his 
distinguished  friend. 


^  LA  DUCHESSE  DE  CHEVREUSE 

(1600— 1679) 
SUTHERLAND   MENZIES 

FROM  the  long-sustained,  vigorous,  and  very  emi- 
nent part  played  by  Marie  de  Rohan  in  opposing 
the  repressive  system  of  the  two  great  Cardinal  Ministers, 
her  name  belongs  equally  to  the  political  history  as  to  that 
of  the  society  and  manners  of  the  first  half  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century. 

She  came  of  that  old  and  illustrious  race,  the  issue  of  the 
first  princes  of  Brittany,  and  was  the  daughter  of  Hercule 
de  Rohan,  Duke  de  Montbazon,  a  zealous  servant  of  Henry 
IV.,  by  his  first  wife  Madeleine  de  Lenoncourt,  sister  of 
Urbain  de  Laval,  Marshal  de  Bois-Dauphin.  Born  in 
December,  1600,  she  lost  her  mother  at  a  very  early  age, 
and  in  161 7  was  married  to  that  audacious  favourite  of 
Louis  Xni.,  De  Luynes,  who  from  the  hiunble  office  of 
"  bird-catcher  "  to  the  young  King,  rose  to  the  proud  dig- 
nity of  Constable  of  France,  and  who,  upon  the  faith  of  a 
klng*s  capricious  friendship,  dared  to  undertake  the  reversal 
of  the  Queen-mother,  Marie  de'  Medici's  authority;  hurl 
to  destruction  her  great  favourite,  the  Marshal  d'Ancre; 
combat  simultaneously  princes  and  Protestants,  and  com- 
mence against  Richelieu  the  system  of  Richelieu.       Early 

124 


LA  DUCHESSE  DE  CHEVREUSE. 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE  125 

becoming  a  widow,  Marie  next,  in  1622,  entered  the  house 
of  Lorraine  by  espousing  Claude,  Duke  de  Chevreuse,  one 
of  the  sons  of  Henry  de  Guise,  great  Chamberlain  of 
France,  whose  highest  merit  was  the  name  he  bore,  accom- 
panied by  good  looks  and  that  bravery  which  was  never 
wanting  to  a  prince  of  Lorraine;  otherwise  disorderly  in 
the  conduct  of  his  affairs,  of  not  very  edifying-  manner  of 
life,  which  may  go  far  to  explain,  and  extenuate  the  errors 
of  his  young  wife.  The  new  Duchesse  de  Chevreuse  had 
been  appointed  during  the  sway  of  her  first  husband, 
surintendante  (controller)  of  the  Queen's  household,  and 
soon  became  as  great  a  favourite  of  Anne  of  Austria  as  the 
Constable  de  Luynes  was  of  Louis  the  Just.  The  French 
Court  was  then  very  brilliant,  and  gallantry  the  order  of 
the  day. 

Marie  de  Rohan  was  naturally  vivacious  and  dash- 
ing, and,  yielding  herself  up  to  the  seductions  of  youth 
and  pleasure,  she  had  lovers,  and  her  adorers  drew  her  into 
politics.  Her  beauty  and  captivating  manners  were  such 
as  to  fascinate  and  enthral  the  least  impressible  who  crossed 
her  path,  and  their  dangerous  power  was  extensively  em- 
ployed in  influencing  the  politics  of  Europe,  and  conse- 
quently had  a  large  share  in  framing  her  own  destiny. 

Madame  de  Chevreuse,  in  fact,  possessed  almost  all  the 
qualities  befitting  a  great  politician.  One  alone  was  want- 
ing, and  precisely  that  without  which  all  the  others  tended 
to  her  ruin.  She  failed  tp  select  for  pursuit  a  legitimate 
object,  or  rather  she  did  not  choose  one  for  herself,  but  left 
it  to  another  to  choose  for  her.       Madame  de  Chevreuse 


126  LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE 

was  womanly  in  the  highest  possible  degree;  that  quality 
was  alike  her  strength  'and  her  weakness.  Her  secret 
mainspring  was  love,  or  rather  gallantry,  and  the  interest 
of  him  whom  she  loved  became  her  paramount  object.  It 
is  this  which  explains  the  wonderful  sagacity,  finesse,  and 
energy  she  displayed  in  the  vain  pursuit  of  a  chimerical  aim, 
which  ever  receded  before  her,  and  seemed  to  draw  her  on 
by  the  very  prestige  of  difficulty  and  danger.  La  Rochefou- 
cauld accuses  her  of  having  brought  misfortune  upon  all 
those  whom  she  loved;  it  is  equally  the  truth  to  add  that 
all  those  whom  she  loved  hurried  her  in  the  sequel  into  in- 
sensate enterprises.  It  was  not  she  evidently  who  made  of 
Buckingham  a  species  of  paladin  without  genius;  a  brilliant 
adventurer  of  Charles  IV.  of  Lorraine;  of  Chalais  a  hare- 
brained blunderer,  rash  enough  to  commit  himself  in  a  con- 
spiracy against  Richelieu,  on  the  faith  of  the  faithless  Due 
d'Orleans;  of  Chateauneuf,  an  ambitious  statesman,  impa- 
tient of  holding  second  rank  in  the  Government,  without 
being  capable  of  taking  the  first. 

There  are  two  judges  of  her  character,  the  testimony  of 
whose  acts  must  be  held  to  be  above  suspicion — Richelieu 
and  Mazarin.  Richelieu  did  all  in  his  power  to  win  her 
over,  and  not  being  able  to  succeed,  he  treated  her  as  an 
enemy  worthy  of  himself. 

To  revert  briefly  to  her  long-continued  struggle  with 
Richelieu,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  for  twenty  years 
she  had  been  the  personal  friend  and  favourite  of  Anne  of 
Austria,  and  for  ten  years  she  had  suffered  persecution  and 
privation  on  that  account.     Exiled,  proscribed,  and  threat- 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE  127 

ened  with  Imprisonment,  she  had  narrowly  escaped  Riche- 
lieu's grasp  by  disguising  herself  in  male  attire,  and  in  that 
garb  traversing  France  and  Spain  on  horseback,  had  suc- 
ceeded in  eluding  his  pursuit,  and  after  many  adventures  in 
safely  reaching  Madrid.  Philip  IV.  not  only  heaped 
every  kind  of  honour  upon  his  sister's  courageous  favourite, 
but  even,  it  is  said,  swelled  the  number  of  her  con- 
quests. 

Whilst  in  the  Spanish  capital  she  had  allied  herself  politi- 
cally with  the  Minister  Olivarez,  and  obtained  great  as- 
cendancy over  the  Cabinet  of  Madrid.  The  war  between 
France  and  Spain  necessarily  rendering  her  position  in  the 
latter  country  delicate  and  embarrassing,  she  had,  early  in 
1638,  sought  refuge  in  England.  Charles  I.  and  Henri- 
etta Maria  gave  her  the  warmest  possible  reception  at  St. 
James's;  and  the  latter,  on  seeing  again  the  distinguished 
countrywoman  who  had  some  years  back  conducted  her  as 
a  bride  from  Paris  to  the  English  shores  to  the  arms  of 
Prince  Charles,  embraced  her  warmly,  entered  into  all  her 
troubles,  and  both  the  English  King  and  Queen  wrote  let- 
ters pleading  in  her  behalf,  to  Louis  XIII.,  Anne  of  Aus- 
tria, and  Richelieu  with  regard  to  the  restoration  of  her 
property,  and  permission  to  rejoin  her  children  at  Dam- 
pierre. 

On  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War  In  England, 
Madame  de  Chevreuse  repaired  to  Brussels,  where.  In  1641, 
we  find  her  acting  as  the  connecting  link  between  England, 
Spain,  and  Lorraine.  Without  attributing  to  the  Duchess 
any  especial  motive  beyond  seconding  an  enterprise  directed 


128  LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE 

against  the  common  enemy,  she  did  not  the  less  play  an 
important  part  in  the  affair  of  the  Count  de  Soissons — the 
most  formidable  conspiracy  that  had  hitherto  been  hatched 
against  Richelieu. 

Suddenly  Marie — all  Europe — ^heard  with  a  throb  that 
the  inscrutable,  iron-handed  man  of  all  the  human  race  most 
dreaded  alike  by  states  as  by  individuals  had  yielded  to  a 
stronger  power  than  his  own,  and  had  closed  his  eyes  in 
death  (December  4,  1642).  Within  a  few  short  months 
afterwards  the  King  also,  whose  regal  power  he  had  con- 
solidated at  such  a  cost  in  blood  and  suffering,  followed  the 
great  statesman  to  the  tomb;  having  entrusted  the  Regency, 
very  much  against  his  will,  to  the  Queen,  but  controlled  by 
a  Council,  over  which  presided  as  Prime  Minister  the  man 
most  devoted  to  Richelieu*s  system — his  closest  friend,  con- 
fidant, and  creature — ^Jules  Mazarin. 

Distrustful  of  leaving  Anne  of  Austria  in  uncontrolled 
possession  of  regal  authority,  Louis,  by  his  last  will  and 
testament,  had  placed  royalty,  including  his  brother  Gaston 
as  lieutenant-general  of  the  realm,  in  a  manner  under  a 
commission.  And  further,  Louis  did  not  believe  that  he 
could  ensure  quiet  to  the  state  after  his  death  without  con- 
firming and  perpetuating,  so  far  as  in  him  lay,  the  perpetual 
exile  of  Madame  de  Chevreuse. 

As  the  pupil  and  confidential  friend  of  Richelieu,  Maz- 
arin had  imbibed  both  that  statesman's  and  the  late  King's 
opinions  and  sentiments  touching  the  influence  of  that  emi- 
nently dangerous  woman.  Though  he  had  never  seen  her 
hitherto,  he  was  not  the  less  well  acquainted  with  her  by 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE  129 

repute:  dreaded  her  mortally,  and  cherishing  a  like  an- 
tipathy to  her  friend,  Chateauneuf. 

Within  a  few  days  only  after  the  decease  of  Louis  XIII. 
that  same  Parliament  which  had  enrolled  his  will  reformed 
it.  The  Queen  Regent  was  freed  from  every  fetter  and 
restriction,  and  invested  with  almost  absolute  sovereignty; 
the  ban  was  removed  from  the  proscribed  couple  so  solemnly 
denounced;  Chateauneuf 's  prison  doors  were  thrown  open, 
and  Madame  de  Chevreuse  quitted  Brussels  triumphantly, 
with  a  cortege  of  twenty  carriages,  filled  with  lords  and 
ladies  of  the  highest  rank  in  that  court,  to  return  once  more 
to  France  and  to  the  side  of  her  royal  friend  and  mistress. 
After  ten  years'  absence  from  the  scene  of  her  former  tri- 
umphs, social  and  political,  did  the  brilliant  Duchess  then 
once  more  find  herself  safe  and  free  in  France. 

When  the  Fronde  broke  out,  that  ardent  factionist 
rushed  once  more  to  Brussels,  and  there  brought  over  to 
her  party  the  support  of  Spain,  together  with  her  own  long 
experience.  She  was  then  nearly  fifty  years  old.  Age 
and  sorrow,  it  is  true,  had  dimmed  the  lustre  of  her  beauty; 
but  she  was  still  abounding  in  attraction,  and  her  firm 
glance,  her  decision,  her  quick  and  accurate  perception,  her 
dauntless  courage  and  genius,  were  yet  entire.  She  had 
there  also  found  a  last  friend  in  the  Marquis  de  Lalgues, 
captain  of  the  Due  d'Orleans's  guards,  a  man  of  sense  and 
resolution,  whom  she  loved  to  the  end,  and  whom,  after 
the  death  of  the  Due  de  Chevreuse  in  1657,  she  linked 
probably  with  her  own  destiny  by  one  of  those  "  marriages 
of  conscience  "  then  somewhat  fashionable.     It  is  not  our 


I30  LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE 

purpose  to  follow  her  step  by  step  through  the  last  civil 
war,  and  so  plunge  the  reader  into  the  labyrinth  of  Fronde 
intrigues.  Suffice  it  to  say,  therefore,  that  she  played 
therein  one  of  the  most  prominent  parts.  Attached,  heart 
and  soul,  to  that  faction  and  its  essential  interests,  she 
steered  it  through  all  the  shoals  and  quick-sands  which  en- 
circled it  with  incomparable  skill  and  vigour.  After  hav- 
ing so  long  enlisted  the  support  of  Spain,  she  knew  the 
proper  moment  to  eifect  a  timely  separation  from  it.  She 
preserved  her  great  influence  over  the  Due  de  Lorraine, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognise  her  hidden  hand  behind 
the  different  and  often  contrary  movements  of  Charles  IV. 
She  had  a  principal  share  in  the  three  great  movements 
which  mark  and  link  together  the  entire  history  of  the 
Fronde  between  the  war  in  Paris  and  the  peace  of  Ruel. 
In  1650  she  was  inclined  to  prefer  Mazarin  to  Conde,  and 
she  ventured  to  advise  laying  hands  on  the  victor  of  Rocroy 
and  Lens. 

In  1 65 1 — ^an  interval  of  incertitude  for  Mazarin,  who 
very  nearly  ensnared  himself  in  the  meshes  of  his  own 
craftiness  and  a  too-complicated  line  of  conduct — a  great 
interest,  the  well-founded  hope  of  marrying  her  daughter 
Charlotte  to  the  Prince  de  Conti,  brought  her  back  once 
more  to  the  Conde  party,  and  hence  the  deliverance 
of  the  imprisoned  princes.  In  1652,  the  accumulated 
blunders  of  Conde  brought  her  back  again  and  forever  to 
Anne  of  Austria  and  Mazarin.  She  did  not  endorse  De 
Retz's  foolish  idea  of  constructing  a  third  party  during  the 
revolt,  nor  dream  of  a  government  shared  between  Conde 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE  131 

and  Mazarin,  with  a  worn-out  parliament  and  the  fickle 
Due  d'Orleans.  Her  politic  instinct  told  her  that,  after 
an  intestine  struggle  so  long  sustained,  a  solid  and  durable 
power  was  the  greatest  necessity  of  France.  Mazarin, 
who  like  Richelieu,  had  never  opposed  her  but  with  regret, 
sought  for,  and  was  very  glad  to  follow  her  advice.  She 
passed  over,  therefore,  with  flying  colours  to  the  side  of 
royalty,  served  it,  and  in  return  received  its  services.  After 
Mazarin,  she  predicted  the  talent  in  Colbert,  before  he  was 
appointed  to  office;  she  laboured  at  his  elevation  and  the 
ruin  of  Fouquet;  and  the  proud  but  judicious  Marie  de 
Rohan  gave  her  grandson,  the  Due  de  Chevreuse,  the 
friend  of  Beauvilliers  and  Fenelon,  to  the  daughter  of  a 
talented  burgess — the  greatest  financial  administrator 
France  had  ever  had.  Thenceforward  she  readily  ob- 
tained all  she  could  desire  for  herself  and  for  her  family; 
and  thus  having  reached  the  summit  of  renown  and  consid- 
eration, like  her  two  illustrious  sister-politicians,  Madame 
de  Longueville  and  the  Princess  Palatine,  she  finished  in 
profound  peace  one  of  the  most  agitated  careers  of  that 
stormiestr  of  epochs — the  Seventeenth  Century. 

Arrived  at  length  but  too  clearly  at  the  conviction  that 
she  had  given  up  her  mind  to  chimaeras  and  illusions,  and 
seeking  self-mortification  through  the  same  sentiment 
which  had  brought  about  her  ruin,  the  once-haughty  Duchess 
became  the  humblest  of  women.  Renouncing  all  worldly 
grandeur,  she  quitted  her  splendid  mansion  in  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  built  by  Le  Muet,  and  retired  into  the  coun- 
try—not  to  Dampierre,  which  would  have  only  too  vividly 


132  LA    DUCHESSE    DE    CHEVREUSE 

recalled  to  her  remembrance  the  brilliant  days  of  her  past 
existence — ^but  to  a  modest  dwelling  at  Gagny,  near  Chelles. 
There  she  awaited  her  last  hour,  far  from  the  world*s  ob- 
servation, and  ere  long  expired  in  tranquillity  at  the  age  of 
seventy-nine,  the  same  year  as  Cardinal  de  Retz  and  Madame 
de  Longueville. 


LADY    JANE    GREY 

(1537— 1554) 
JAMES    ANTHONY    FROUDE 

LADY  JANE  was  not  to  reign  alone:  Northumber- 
^land  intended  to  hold  the  reign  tight-grasped  in  his 
own  hands,  to  keep  the  power  in  his  own  family,  and  to 
urge  the  sex  of  Mary  as  among  the  prominent  occasions  of 
her  incapacity.  England  was  still  to  have  a  king,  and  that 
king  was  to  be  Guilford  Dudley. 

Jane  Grey,  eldest  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  was 
nearly  of  the  same  age  with  Edward.  Edward  had  been 
precocious  to  a  disease;  the  activity  of  his  mind  had  been  a 
symptom,  or  a  cause,  of  the  weakness  of  his  body.  Jane 
Grey's  accomplishments  were  as  extensive  as  Edward's;  she 
had  acquired  a  degree  of  learning  rare  in  matured  men, 
which  she  could  use  gracefully,  and  could  permit  to  be  seen 
by  others  without  vanity  or  consciousness.  Her  character 
had  developed  with  her  talents.  At  fifteen  she  was  learn- 
ing Hebrew  and  could  write  Greek;  at  sixteen  she  corre- 
sponded with  Bullinger  in  Latin  at  least  equal  to  his  own; 
but  the  matter  of  her  letters  is  more  striking  than  the 
language,  and  speaks  more  for  her  than  the  most  elaborate 
panegyrics  of  admiring  courtiers. 

When    married    to    Guilford    Dudley,    Lady   Jane   had 

133 


134  LADY    JANE    GREY 

entreated  that,  being  herself  so  young,  and  her  husband 
scarcely  older,  she  might  continue  to  reside  with  her 
mother.  Lady  Northumberland  had  consented;  and  the 
new-made  bride  remained  at  home  till  a  rumour  went 
abroad  that  Edward  was  on  the  point  of  death,  when  she 
was  told  that  she  must  remove  to  her  father-in-law's  house, 
till  "  Grod  should  call  the  King  to  his  mercy  " ;  her  presence 
would  then  be  required  at  the  Tower,  the  King  having 
appointed  her  to  be  the  heir  to  the  Crown. 

This  was  the  first  hint  which  she  had  received  of  the 
fortune  which  was  in  store  for  her.  She  believed  it  to  be 
a  jest,  and  took  no  notice  of  the  order  to  change  her  resi- 
dence, till  the  Duchess  of  Northumberland  came  herself 
to  fetch  her.  Afterwards  she  was  taken  to  a  house  of  the 
Duke's  at  Chelsea,  where  she  remained  till  Sunday,  the  9th  of 
July,  when  a  message  was  brought  that  she  was  wanted  im- 
mediately at  Sion  House  to  receive  an  order  from  the  King. 

She  went  alone.  There  was  no  one  at  the  palace  when 
she  arrived;  but  immediately  after  Northumberland  came, 
attended  by  Pembroke,  Northampton,  Huntingdon,  and 
Arundel.  The  Earl  of  Pembroke,  as  he  approached,  knelt 
to  kiss  her  hand.  Lady  Northumberland  and  Lady  North- 
ampton entered,  and  the  Duke,  as  President  of  the  Council, 
rose  to  speak. 

"  The  King,"  he  said,  "  was  no  more.  A  godly  life  had 
been  followed,  as  a  consolation  to  their  sorrows,  by  a  godly 
end,  and  in  leaving  the  world  he  had  not  forgotten  his  duty 
to  his  subjects.  His  Majesty  had  prayed  on  his  deathbed 
that  Almighty   God   would   protect  the  realm  from   false 


LADY  JANE  GREY. 


LADY    JANE    GREY  I35 

opinions,  and  especially  from  his  unworthy  sister;  he  had 
reflected  that  both  the  Lady  Mary  and  the  Lady  Elizabeth 
had  been  cut  off  by  Act  of  Parliament  from  the  succession  as 
illegitimate;  the  Lady  Mary  had  been  disobedient  to  her 
father;  she  had  been  again  disobedient  to  her  brother;  she 
was  a  capital  and  principal  enemy  of  God's  word ;  and  both 
she  and  her  sister  were  bastards  born;  King  Henry  did  not 
intend  that  the  Crown  should  be  worn  by  either  of  them; 
King  Edward,  therefore,  had,  before  his  death,  bequeathed 
it  to  his  cousin  the  Lady  Jane;  and,  should  the  Lady  Jane 
die  without  children,  to  her  younger  sister;  and  he  had 
entreated  the  Council,  for  their  honours'  sake  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  realm,  to  see  that  his  will  was  observed." 

Northumberland,  as  he  concluded,  dropt  on  his  knees;  the 
four  lords  knelt  with  him,  and,  doing  homage  to  the  Lady 
Jane  as  Queen,  they  swore  that  they  would  keep  their  faith 
or  lose  their  lives  in  her  defence. 

Lady  Jane  shook,  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  and 
fell  fainting  to  the  ground.  Her  first  simple  grief  was  for 
Edward's  death;  she  felt  it  as  the  loss  of  a  dearly  loved 
brother.  The  weight  of  her  own  fortune  was  still  more 
agitating;  when  she  came  to  herself,  she  cried  that  it  could 
not  be;  the  Crown  was  not  for  her,  she  could  not  bear  It — 
she  was  not  fit  for  it.  Then,  knowing  nothing  of  the  false- 
hoods which  Northumberland  had  told  her,  she  clasped  her 
hands,  and,  in  a  revulsion  of  feeling,  she  prayed  God  that  if 
the  great  place  to  which  she  was  called  was,  indeed,  justly 
hers.  He  would  give  her  grace  to  govern  for  His  service,  and 
for  the  welfare  of  His  people. 


136  LADY    JANE    GREY 

So  passed  Sunday,  the  9th  of  July,  at  Sion  House.  In 
London,  the  hope  of  first  securing  Mary  being  disappointed, 
the  King's  death  had  been  publicly  acknowledged;  circulars 
were  sent  out  to  the  sheriffs,  mayors,  and  magistrates  in  the 
usual  style,  announcing  the  accession  of  Queen  Jane,  and 
the  troops  were  sworn  man  by  man  to  the  new  sovereign. 
The  next  day,  Monday,  the  loth  of  July,  the  royal  barges 
came  down  the  Thames  from  Richmond;  and  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  Lady  Jane  landed  at  the  broad 
staircase  at  the  Tower,  as  Queen,  in  undesired  splendour. 
A  few  scattered  groups  of  spectators  stood  to  watch  the 
arrival;  but  it  appeared  from  their  silence,  that  they  had 
been  brought  together  chiefly  by  curiosity.  As  the  gates 
closed,  the  heralds-at-arms,  with  a  company  of  the  archers 
of  the  guard,  rode  into  the  city,  and  at  the  cross  in  Cheapside, 
Paul's  Cross,  and  Fleet  Street,  they  proclaimed  "  that  the 
Lady  Mary  was  unlawfully  begotten,  and  that  the  Lady 
Jane  Grey  was  Queen."  The  ill-humour  of  London  was 
no  secret,  and  some  demonstration  had  been  looked  for  in 
Mary's  favour ;  but  here,  again,  there  was  only  silence.  The 
heralds  cried :  "  God  save  the  Queen !  "  The  archers 
waved  their  caps  and  cheered,  but  the  crowd  looked  on 
impassively. 

Lady  Jane  had  retired  to  her  apartment  when  the  Marquis 
of  Winchester  came  in  to  wish  her  joy.  He  had  brought 
the  Crown  with  him,  which  she  had  not  sent  for;  he  desired 
her  to  put  it  on,  and  see  if  it  required  alteration.  She  said 
it  would  do  very  well  as  it  was.  He  then  told  her  that, 
before  her  coronation,  another  crown  was  to  be  made  for 


LADY    JANE    GREY  137 

her  husband.  Lady  Jane  started;  and  it  seemed  as  if  for 
the  first  time  the  dreary  suspicion  crossed  her  mind  that  she 
was,  after  all,  but  the  puppet  of  the  ambition  of  the  Duke  to 
raise  his  family  to  the  throne.  Winchester  retired,  and  she 
sat  indignant  till  Guilford  Dudley  appeared,  when  she  told 
him  that,  young  as  she  was,  she  knew  that  the  Crown  of 
England  was  not  a  thing  to  be  trifled  with.  There  was  no 
Dudley  in  Edward's  will,  and,  before  he  could  be  crowned, 
the  consent  of  Parliament  must  be  first  asked  and  obtained. 
The  boy-husband  went  whining  to  his  mother,  while  Jane 
sent  for  Arundel  and  Pembroke,  and  told  them  that  it  was 
not  for  her  to  appoint  Kings.  She  would  make  her  husband 
a  Duke  if  he  desired  it;  but  King  she  would  not  make  him. 

On  Wednesday,  the  19th,  word  came  that  the  Earl  of 
Oxford  had  joined  Mary.  A  letter  was  written  to  Lord 
Rich  admonishing  him  not  to  follow  Oxford's  example,  but 
to  remain  true  to  Queen  Jane,  which  the  Council  were 
required  to  sign.  Had  they  refused,  they  would  probably 
have  been  massacred.  Towards  the  middle  of  the  day, 
Winchester,  Arundel,  Pembroke,  Shrewsbury,  Bedford, 
Cheyne,  Paget,  Mason,  and  Petre  found  means  of  passing 
the  gates,  and  made  their  way  to  Baynard's  Castle,  where 
they  sent  for  the  mayor,  aldermen,  and  other  great  persons 
of  the  city.  When  they  were  all  assembled,  Arundel  was 
the  first  to  speak. 

The  country,  he  said,  was  on  the  brink  of  civil  war,  and 
if  they  continued  to  support  the  pretensions  of  Lady  Jane 
Grey  to  the  Crown,  civil  war  would  inevitably  break  out. 
In  a  few  more  days  or  weeks  the  child  would  be  in  arms 


13^  LADY    JANE    GREY 

against  the  father,  the  brother  against  the  brother;  the  quar- 
rels of  religion  would  add  fury  to  the  struggle;  the  French 
would  interfere  on  one  side,  the  Spaniards  on  the  other,  and 
in  such  a  conflict  the  triumph  of  either  party  would  be  almost 
equally  Injurious  to  the  honour,  unity,  freedom,  and  hap- 
piness of  England.  The  friends  of  the  commonwealth,  in 
the  face  of  so  tremendous  a  danger,  would  not  obstinately 
persist  in  encouraging  the  pretensions  of  a  faction.  It  was 
for  them  where  they  sate  to  decide  if  there  should  be  peace 
or  war,  and  he  implored  them,  for  the  sake  of  the  country, 
to  restore  the  Crown  to  her  who  was  their  lawful  sovereign. 

Pembroke  rose  next.  The  words  of  Lord  Arundel,  he 
said,  were  true  and  good,  and  not  to  be  gainsaid.  What 
others  thought  he  knew  not;  for  himself,  he  was  so  con- 
vinced, that  he  would  fight  in  the  quarrel  with  any  man; 
and  if  words  are  not  enough,  he  cried,  flashing  his  sword  out 
of  the  scabbard,  **  this  blade  shall  make  Mary  Queen,  or  I 
will  lose  my  life." 

Not  a  word  was  raised  for  the  Twelfth  Day  Queen,  as 
Lady  Jane  was  termed,  in  scornful  pity,  by  Noailles.  Some 
few  persons  thought  that,  before  they  took  a  decisive  step, 
they  should  send  notice  to  Northumberland,  and  give  him 
time  to  secure  his  pardon.  But  it  was  held  to  be  a  needless 
stretch  of  consideration;  Shrewsbury  and  Mason  hastened 
off  to  communicate  with  Renard ;  while  a  hundred  and  fifty 
men  were  marched  directly  to  the  Tower  gates,  and  the 
keys  were  demanded  in  the  Queen's  name. 

It  is  said  that  Suffolk  was  unprepared;  but  the  goodness 
of  his  heart  and  the  weakness  of  his  mind  alike  prevented 


LADY    JANE    GREY  I39 

him  from  attempting  a  useless  resistance;  the  gates  were 
opened,  and  the  unhappy  father  rushed  to  his  daughter's 
room.  He  clutched  at  the  canopy  under  which  she  was  sit- 
ting, and  tore  it  down;  she  was  no  longer  Queen,  he  said, 
and  such  distinctions  were  not  for  one  of  her  station.  He 
then  told  her  briefly  of  the  revolt  of  the  Council.  She 
replied  that  his  present  words  were  more  welcome  to  her 
than  those  in  which  he  had  advised  her  to  accept  the  Crown ; 
her  reign  being  at  an  end,  she  asked  innocently  if  she  might 
leave  the  Tower  and  go  home.  But  the  Tower  was  a  place 
not  easy  to  leave,  save  by  one  route  too  often  travelled. 

Meanwhile  the  Lords,  with  the  mayor  and  the  heralds, 
went  to  the  Cross  at  Cheapside  to  proclaim  Mary  Queen. 
Pembroke  himself  stood  out  to  read;  and  this  time  there 
was  no  reason  to  complain  of  a  silent  audience.  He  could 
utter  but  one  sentence  before  his  voice  was  lost  in  the  shout 
of  joy  which  thundered  into  the  air.  "  God  save  the 
Queen !  "  rung  out  from  thousands  of  throats.  "  God  save 
the  Queen ! "  cried  Pembroke  himself,  when  he  had  done, 
and  flung  up  his  jewelled  cap  and  tossed  his  purse  among  the 
crowd.  The  glad  news  spread  like  lightning  through  Lon- 
don, and  the  pent-up  hearts  of  the  citizens  poured  themselves 
out  in  a  torrent  of  exultation. 

Mary  rarely  paused  upon  a  resolution.  Making  up  her 
mind  that,  as  Renard  said,  it  would  be  better  for  her  to  go 
to  London,  she  set  out  thither  the  3d  of  August.  Excite- 
ment lent  to  her  hard  features  an  expression  almost  of  beauty, 
as  she  rode  in  the  midst  of  a  splendid  cavalcade  of  knights 
and  nobles. 


I40  LADY    JANE    GREY 

The  trials  of  the  conspirators  were  now  resolved  upon. 
The  Queen  was  determined  to  spare  Lady  Jane  Grey,  in 
spite  of  all  which  Renard  could  urge;  but  the  state  of  Lon- 
don showed  that  the  punishment  of  the  really  guilty  could 
no  longer  be  safely  delayed.  On  this  point  all  parties  in  the 
Council  were  agreed.  On  Friday,  the  i8th  of  August, 
therefore,  a  court  of  peers  was  formed  in  Westminster  Hall, 
with  the  aged  Duke  of  Norfolk  for  High  Steward,  to 
try  John  Dudley,  Duke  of  Northumberland;  the  Earl  of 
Warwick,  and  the  Marquis  of  Northampton  for  high 
treason. 

Renard  in  the  closet,  Gardiner  in  the  pulpit,  alike  told  her 
that  she  must  show  no  more  mercy.  "  The  Queen's  blood 
is  up  at  last,"  Renard  wrote  exultingly  to  the  Emperor  on 
the  8th  of  February;  "the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  Lord  Thomas 
Grey,  and  Sir  James  Crofts  have  written  to  ask  for  mercy, 
but  they  will  find  none;  their  heads  will  fall,  and  so  will 
Courtenay's  and  Elizabeth's.  I  have  told  the  Queen  that 
she  must  be  especially  prompt  with  these  two."  He  was  sure 
that  the  two  centres  of  all  past  and  all  possible  conspiracies 
were  Elizabeth  and  Courtenay,  and  that  when  their  heads 
and  the  heads  of  the  Greys  were  off,  she  would  have  nothing 
more  to  fear.  Jane  Grey  was  guilty  of  having  been  once 
called  Queen,  and  Mary,  who  before  had  been  generously 
deaf  to  the  Emperor's  advice,  and  to  Renard 's  arguments, 
yielded  in  her  present  humour.  Philip  was  beckoning  in  the 
distance;  and  while  Jane  Grey  lived,  Philip,  she  was  again 
and  again  assured,  must  remain  forever  separated  from  hei 
arms.     In  killing  her  body,  however,  Mary  desired  to  have 


LADY    JANE    GREY  141 

merq^  on  her  soul ;  and  she  sent  the  message  of  death  by  the 
excellent  Feckenham,  afterwards  Abbot  of  Westminster, 
who  was  to  bring  her,  if  possible,  to  obedience  to  the  Catholic 
faith. 

Feckenham,  a  man  full  of  gentle  and  tender  humanity, 
felt  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul  the  errand  on  which  he  was 
despatched.  He  felt  as  a  Catholic  priest — ^but  he  felt  also 
as  a  man.  On  admission  to  Lady  Jane's  room  he  told  her, 
also,  for  what  reason  the  Queen  had  selected  him  to  com- 
municate the  sentence.  She  listened  calmly.  The  time  was 
short,  she  said;  too  short  to  be  spent  in  theological  discus- 
sion ;  which,  if  Feckenham  would  permit,  she  would  decline. 

The  night  before  she  suffered  she  wrote  a  few  sentences 
of  advice  to  her  sister  on  the  blank  leaf  of  a  New  Testament. 
To  her  father,  knowing  his  weakness,  and  knowing,  too,  how 
he  would  be  worked  on  to  imitate  the  recantation  of  North- 
umberland, she  sent  a  letter  of  exquisite  beauty,  in  which 
the  exhortations  of  a  dying  saint  are  tempered  with  the 
reverence  of  a  daughter  for  her  father. 

Her  husband  was  also  to  die,  and  to  die  before  her.  The 
morning  on  which  they  were  to  suffer  he  begged  for  a  last 
interview  and  a  last  embrace.  It  was  left  to  herself  to  con- 
sent or  refuse.  If,  she  replied,  the  meeting  would  benefit 
either  of  their  souls,  she  would  see  him  with  pleasure;  but, 
in  her  own  opinion,  it  would  only  increase  their  trial.  They 
would  meet  soon  enough  in  the  other  world. 

He  died,  therefore,  without  seeing  her  again.  She  saw 
him  once  alive  as  he  was  led  to  the  scaffold,  and  again  as  he 
returned  a  mutilated  corpse  in  the  death-cart.     It  was  not 


142  LADY    JANE    GREY 

wilful  cruelty.  The  officer  in  command  had  forgotten  that 
the  ordinary  road  led  past  her  window.  But  the  delicate 
girl  of  seventeen  was  as  masculine  in  her  heart  as  in  her  intel- 
lect. When  her  own  turn  arrived,  Sir  John  Brydges  led 
her  down  to  the  green;  her  attendants  were  in  an  agony  of 
tears,  but  her  own  eyes  were  dry.  She  prayed  quietly  till 
she  reached  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  when  she  turned  to 
Feckenham,  who  still  clung  to  her  side.  "  Go  now,"  she 
said :  "  God  grant  you  all  your  desires,  and  accept  my  own 
warm  thanks  for  your  attentions  to  me;  although,  indeed, 
those  attentions  have  tried  me  more  than  death  can  now  ter- 
rify me."  She  sprung  up  the  steps,  and  said  briefly  that  she 
had  broken  the  law  in  accepting  the  Crown;  but  as  to  any 
guilt  of  intention,  she  wrung  her  hands,  and  said  she  washed 
them  clean  of  it  in  innocency  before  God  and  man.  She 
entreated  her  hearers  to  bear  her  witness  that  she  died  a 
Christian  woman;  that  she  looked  to  be  saved  only  by  the 
mercy  of  God  and  the  merits  of  his  Son :  she  begged  for  their 
prayers  as  long  as  she  was  alive.  Feckenham  had  still  fol- 
lowed her,  notwithstanding  his  dismissal.  **  Shall  I  say  the 
Miserere  psalm  ? "  she  said  to  him.  When  it  was  done, 
she  let  down  her  hair  with  her  attendants'  help  and  uncov- 
ered her  neck.  The  rest  may  be  told  in  the  words  of  the 
chronicler : 

"  The  hangman  kneeled  down  and  asked  her  forgiveness, 
whom  she  forgave  most  willingly.  Then  he  willed  her  to 
stand  upon  the  straw,  which  doing  she  saw  the  block.  Then 
she  said :  *  I  pray  you  despatch  me  quickly.'  Then  she 
kneeled  down,  saying,  *  Will  you  take  it  off  before  I  lay  me 


LADY    JANE    GREY  143 

down?*  and  the  hangman  answered,  *  No,  Madam.'  She 
tied  a  kercher  about  her  eyes ;  then,  feeling  for  the  block,  she 
said:  *  What  shall  I  do;  where  is  it?'  One  of  the  by- 
standers guiding  her  thereunto,  she  laid  her  head  down  upon 
the  block,  and  stretched  forth  her  body,  and  said :  *  Lord, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit.'     And  so  ended." 


ANNE    DE    PISSELEU,   DUCHESSE 
D'ESTAMPES 

(About  1508 — about  1576) 

MADAME     BOLLY 

ANNE    DE    PISSELEU,  Duchesse    d'Estampes,    first 

JL  Xknown  as  Mademoiselle  d'Hellly,  daughter  of  Gull- 

laume   de   Pisseleu,   was  born   about   the  year    1508.     As 

first  maid  of  honour  to  the  Duchesse  d'Angouleme,  mother 

of  Francis  I.,  she  was  in  the  train  of  that  princess  to  whom 

the  King  confided  the  Regency  during  his  captivity,  and 

went  with  her  to  meet  the  monarch  when  he  returned  to 

France  after  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of  Madrid.    Francis 

saw  Mademoiselle  d'Heilly  for  the  first  time  at  Bayonne; 

she  was  eighteen  years  old.     The  King  was  so  struck  with 

her  dazzling  charms  that  he  fell  deeply  in  love  with  them 

and  sacrificed  the  Comtesse  de  Chateaubriant,  whom  he  had 

loved  tenderly,  for  her.     Beauty  was  not  the  only  advantage 

that  Mademoiselle  d'Heilly  possessed :  her  solid  and  brilliant 

mind  immediately  assured  her  empire  over  the  King's  heart 

and  rendered  it  lasting.     Sensitive  to  the  beauty  of  art  and 

the    merit   of    letters,    she    patronised    both    and    deserved 

the  title  of  "  Mecene  des  beaux-esprits  **  and   the  eulogy 

of  being  "la  plus  belle  des  savantes  et  la  plus  savante  des 

belles.*' 

In  order  to  give  rank  to  his  mistress,  the  King  married 

144 


ANNE  I)E  PISSELEU. 


ANNE   DE  PISSELEU  I45 

her  to  Jean  de  Brosse,  whose  father  had  followed  the  Due 
de  Bourbon's  party.  In  favour  of  this  marriage,  Francis 
I.  returned  the  confiscated  goods  of  his  house  to  Jean  de 
Brosse,  made  him  Knight  of  his  Order  and  Governor  of 
Brittany,  and  gave  him  the  duchy  of  Estampes. 

Loved  by  the  greatest  King  of  the  day  in.  Europe,  and  her- 
self a  repository  of  all  the  graces,  the  Duchesse  took  advan- 
tage of  her  position  to  enrich  her  family.  Her  three  brothers, 
obtained  bishoprics;  two  of  her  sisters,  rich  abbeys;  and  the 
others  became  allied  to  the  most  important  houses  in  the 
kingdom.  All  this  good  fortune,  however,  was  disturbed  by 
the  jealousy  that  the  Duchesse  d'Estampes  conceived  for 
Diane  de  Poitiers,  the  Dauphin's  mistress,  who  hated  her, 
on  her  part.  The  reciprocal  hatred  of  the  two  rivals  burst 
out  on  every  occasion  and  was  soon  shared  by  the  entire 
court.  This  misunderstanding  brought  disunion  even  into 
the  royal  family.  The  Duchesse  formed  a  party  in  favour 
of  the  Due  d'Orleans,  a  young  prince,  whose  brilliant 
valour  already  recalled  that  of  Francis  I.  Diane,  who  was 
called  at  that  time  la  grande  senechale,  placed  herself  at  the 
head  of  the  Dauphin's  party. 

These  dissensions  had  the  most  fateful  issue;  for  the 
Duchesse,  without  considering  the  interests  of  the  state  and 
in  the  fear  that  the  Dauphin  would  overcome  the  Due 
d'Orleans,  opposed  as  much  as  was  in  her  power  the  progress 
of  that  prince  against  the  armies  of  Charles  V.  When  that 
monarch  crossed  France  in  1540  to  enter  the  Low  Countries, 
and  trusted  himself  with  a  noble  confidence  to  the  loyalty  of 
Francis  L,  the  Duchesse  d'Estampes  counselled  the  King 


146  ANNE  DE  PISSELEU 

to  seize  the  Emperor's  person.  The  King,  too  generous  to 
follow,  such  advice,  contented  himself  with  saying  to  that 
prince  as  he  presented  the.  Duchesse  to  him :  "  My  brother, 
here  is  a  beautiful  lady  who  advises  me  to  atone  in  Paris 
for  the  work  of  Madrid." 

It  has  been  said  that  Charles  replied  coldly:  "  If  the 
advice-  is  good;  you  ought  to  follow  it." 

However,,  alarmed  at  the  peril  in  which  he  found  him- 
self, the.  Emperor  tried  to  win  over  the  favourite;  several 
authors  pretend  he  succeeded  by  making  her  accept  a  very 
beautiful  diamond,  which  he  dropped  on  purpose,  and  which 
she  hastened  to  pick  up  to  return  to  him.  This  fact  is 
scarcely  probable.  How  can  we  believe  that  the  pleasure  of 
possessing  a  diamond,  no  matter  how  beautiful,  could  have 
so  great  an  influence  upon  a  woman  like  the  Duchesse 
d'Estampes,  and  in  her  situation  ?  Without  knowing  exactly 
what*  means  the  Emperor  used  to  gain  her,  it  is  certain  that 
she  had  subsequent  dealings  with  him  that  were  very  hurtful 
to  the  interests  of  France.  Always  guided  by  her  hatred 
for  Diane  and  the  desire  to  thwart  the  Dauphin,  through  her 
intrigues  she  forced  that  young  prince  to  raise  the  siege  of 
Perpignan;  the  enemy,  informed  by  the  Duchesse  of  the 
King's  designs,  threw  two  thousand  men  into  the  place,  and 
by  that  means  rendered  it  impregnable. 

When  Charles  V.  and  Henry  VIII.  attacked  Francis  I. 
together  in  1544,  the  Duchesse  was  again  accused  of  having 
given  the  secret  of  the  operations  in  the  country  to  the  Em- 
peror. The  seizure  of  Epernay,  that  of  Chateau-Thierry, 
and  the  success  of  the  Imperials,  whose  approach  brought 
terror  even  to  the  walls  of  Paris,  are  also  attributed  to  her. 


ANNE  DE  PISSELEU  H7 

Abusing  the  King's  passion  and  the  power  that  she  held 
over  his  mind,  she  made  him  sign  the  Treaty  of  Crepy,  so 
disgraceful  to  France  that  the  Dauphin  protested  against  it 
for  several  weeks  after  it  was  signed. 

What  the  favourite  had  feared  for  so  long,  really  hap- 
pened: Francis  I.  died  on  March  31,  1547.  The  Dau- 
phin succeeded  him  under  the  name  of  Henry  II.,  and 
it  may  be  said  that  Diane  ascended  the  throne  with  him. 

The  power  of  the  Duchesse  d'Estampes  had  always  been 
contested ;  Diane  reigned  openly.  All  the  Duchesse's  crea- 
tures were  disgraced,  or  exiled ;  but,  as  if  the  power  of  being 
able  to  harm  her  rival  suddenly  took  away  all  desire  to  do  so, 
Diane  contented  herself  with  ordering  her  to  retire  to  her 
estates  and  allowing  her  to  enjoy  her  possessions. 

After  the  King's  death,  the  Duchesse  d'Estampes,  who  had 
always  protected  the  so-called  reformed  religion — probably 
because  Diane  persecuted  it — openly  embraced  Protestant- 
ism. She  used  the  revenue  of  the  fortune  she  had  acquired 
during  her  favour  to  make  proselytes  and  to  succour  poor 
Protestants. 

It  is  singular  that  Theodore  de  Beze,  who  mentions  all 
the  noted  people  that  favoured  reform,  does  not  speak  of 
Madame  d'Estampes;  doubtless  he  feared  to  harm  his  sect 
by  acknowledging  such  a  protectress. 

This  favourite,  whom  posterity  will  eternally  reproach 
for  having  betrayed  the  confidence  of  the  King  who  loved 
her  for  more  than  twenty  years,  died  in  such  obscurity  that 
the  period  of  her  death  is  scarcely  known:  it  is  thought  to  be 
about  the  year  1576. 


BIANCA    CAPELLO 

(About  1548— 1587) 
ALEXANDRE  DUMAS 

TOWARDS  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Cosmo  the  Great, 
that  is  to  say  about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1565, 
a  young  man  named  Pietro  Bonaventuri,  of  an  honourable 
but  poor  family,  went  to  Venice  to  seek  his  fortune.  One  of 
his  uncles,  who  bore  the  same  name,  and  who  had  lived  in 
the  most  serene  city  for  about  twenty  years,  recommended 
him  to  the  banking-house  of  Salviati,  of  which  he  himself 
was  a  manager.  The  young  man  was  of  haughty  appear- 
ance, wrote  a  beautiful  hand,  and  cyphered  like  an  astrologer; 
he  was  accepted  as  a  clerk  with  a  promise  that  if  he  con- 
ducted himself  well,  he  should  receive,  in  the  course  of  three 
or  four  years,  150  or  200  ducats. 

Opposite  the  Salviati  bank  there  lived  a  rich  Venetian 
gentleman,  the  head  of  the  house  of  Capello,  who  had  a  son 
and  a  daughter.  The  son  was  a  handsome  young  man  with 
pointed  beard  and  up-turned  moustache,  and  was  clever  and 
insolent  in  speech. 

As  for  Bianca,  she  was  a  charming  girl  of  fifteen  or  sixteen, 
with  a  dead  white  complexion,  over  which  at  the  slightest 
emotion  a  blush  would  pass  like  a  rosy  cloud;  hair  of  that 
intense  blonde  that  Raphael  thinks  so  beautiful;  black  eyes 

148 


BIANCA  CAPELLO. 


BIANCA    CAPELLO  I49 

full  of  fire;  a  supple  and  firm  waist;  and  as  loving  as  Juliet 
herself, — in  fact,  waiting  for  the  moment  when  a  handsome 
Romeo  would  cross  her  path  to  say  to  her,  as  he  said  to  the 
young  girl  of  Verona,  "  I  will  give  myself  to  you,  or  the 
tomb." 

She  saw  Pietro  Bonaventuri;  the  young  man's  window 
looked  upon  hers.  First,  they  exchanged  glances;  then, 
signs;  and  then,  vows  of  love.  Arrived  at  this  point,  noth- 
ing separated  them  but  distance:  this  distance  Bianca  leaped. 

Every  night  when  the  entire  household  of  the  noble 
Capello  was  asleep,  and  Bianca's  nurse  had  retired  Into  the 
next  room,  she  threw  a  dark  robe  over  her  so  as  not  to  be 
noticed  in  the  street;  stole  down  the  marble  steps  of  her 
father's  palace  as  softly  as  a  shadow;  opened  the  door  and 
crossed  the  street.  At  the  opposite  door  she  found  her  lover. 
Then,  together,  with  tender  embraces,  they  went  up  to 
Pietro's  little  room.  When  day  was  about  to  break,  Bianca 
went  downstairs  and  returned  to  her  own  chamber,  where 
her  nurse  found  her  sleeping  in  the  morning. 

One  night  when  Bianca  was  with  her  lover,  a  baker's 
boy  found  the  door  open  and  thought  he  ought  to  shut  it; 
ten  minutes  later,  Bianca  came  downstairs  and  found  that 
it  was  impossible  to  return  to  her  father's. 

Bianca  was  one  of  those  strong  natures  that  takes  a  resolu- 
tion in  an  instant  and  remains  firm;  she  saw  her  whole 
future  changed  by  an  accident;  and  she  unhesitatingly 
accepted  the  new  life  made  for  her  by  this  accident. 

Bianca  went  back  to  her  lover,  told  him  what  had  hap- 
pened, asked  if  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  for  her 


I50  BIANCA    CAPELLO 

as  she  was  for  him,  and  proposed  that  they  should  make  use 
of  the  two  night  hours  that  remained  to  leave  Venice  and 
put  themselves  beyond  reach  of  pursuit.  Pietro  Bon^venturl 
agreed.  The  two  young  people  jumped  into  a  gondola  and 
repaired  to  the  keeper  of  the  port.  There  Pietro  Bonaven- 
turi  made  himself  known  and  said  that  important  business 
for  the  Salviati  bank  compelled  him  to  leave  Venice  that 
moment  for  Rimini.  The  keeper  gave  the  order  to  drop 
the  bridge  and  the  two  fugitives  passed  over;  only  instead 
of  taking  the  road  to  Rimini,  they  hastily  went  to  Ferrara. 

The  fugitives  arrived  in  Florence  without  any  accident, 
but,  you  may  well  believe,  greatly  fatigued,  and  sought 
refuge  with  Bonaventuri's  father,  who  lived  in  a  small 
apartment  on  the  second  floor  of  Saint  Mark's  Square;  these 
children  were  welcomed  by  their  poor  parents. 

Three  months  passed,  during  which  poor  Bianca,  accus- 
tomed to  all  the  delights  of  luxury,  never  let  a  single  com- 
plaint of  her  misery  escape  her  lips.  Her  one  amusement 
was  to  look  into  the  street  from  her  window;  but  the  poor 
prisoner  was  never  heard  to  envy  the  liberty  of  those,  who, 
sad  or  joyful,  passed  by. 

Among  the  latter  was  the  young  Grand  Duke,  who  was 
going  to  visit  his  father  in  his  castle  at  Petraja.  Francesco 
usually  made  this  little  trip  on  horseback;  and,  being  a 
young,  handsome,  and  gallant  cavalier,  whenever  he  came 
to  any  spot  where  he  could  be  seen  by  fair  eyes,  he  would 
make  his  horse  caracole.  One  day  the  Prince  raised  his  eyes 
by  chance  and  saw  in  the  shadow  of  the  shutters  the  burning 
eyes  of  a  young  girl.     Bianca  withdrew  quickly,  so  quickly 


BIANCA    CAPELLO  151 

that  she  dropped  a  bouquet  that  she  held  in  her  hand.  The 
Prince  jumped  from  his  horse,  picked  up  the  flowers,  and 
waited  a  moment  to  see  if  that  beautiful  vision  would  appear 
again;  then  seeing  that  the  blind  remained  lowered,  he  put 
the  bouquet  in  his  doublet,  and  went  on  his  way,  looking 
back  two  or  three  times  before  disappearing. 

The  next  day  he  passed  by  at  the  same  hour ;  but  although 
Bianca  stood  trembling  behind  the  shutter,  the  window  was 
closed  and  no  flower  fell  through  the  slats. 

Two  days  later  the  Prince  passed  by  again;  but  the  win- 
dow was  unrelenting  to  the  secret  prayers  that  he  addressed 
to  it. 

Then  he  decided  on  another  plan.  He  sent  for  a  Spanish 
gentleman  named  Mondragone,  who  had  been  given  a  posi- 
tion in  his  court  by  his  father;  he  placed  his  hand  upon  his 
shoulder,  looked  into  his  face,  and  said: 

"  Mondragone,  in  Saint  Mark's  Square,  on  the  second 
floor  of  the  house  at  the  corner  of  Santa  Croce  and  the  via 
Larga,  there  is  a  young  girl  whom  I  do  not  recognise  as 
belonging  to  Florence;  she  is  beautiful;  she  pleases  me;  in 
eight  days  you  must  bring  her  here." 

Mondragone,  knowing  that  under  certain  circumstances 
the  first  requisite  of  a  courtier  is  to  be  laconic,  replied: 
"  You  shall  have  her." 

It  soon  happened  that  Pietro  was  the  lover  of  a  veiled 
lady  and  Bianca  was  the  Grand  Duke's  mistress. 

However,  be  it  understood  that  Cosmo  I.  was  at  this 
juncture  negotiating  for  the  marriage  of  the  Grand  Duke 
Francesco  with  the  Archduchess  Jeanne  of  Austria.     The 


152  BIANCA     CAPELLO 

marriage  took  place;  the  Grand  Duke  gave  up  a  year  to 
propriety,  visiting  Bianca  only  at  night,  and  then  leaving 
his  palace  alone  and  in  disguise;  but  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
having  received  a  letter  from  the  Grand  Duke,  his  father, 
telling  him  that  such  promenades  were  dangerous  for  a 
prince,  he  gave  Pietro  some  employment  in  the  Pitti  Palace, 
and  bought  for  Bianca  the  charming  house  that  is  still  to  be 
seen  in  the  via  Maggio,  surmounted  by  the  Medici  arms. 
Bianca  was  now  so  near  Francesco  that  he  had  only  to  cross 
the  Pitti  Square,  to  find  himself  at  her  side. 

We  know  Pietro's  inclination  for  dissipation  and  insolence. 
His  new  position  gave  him  new  vigour.  He  threw  himself 
with  might  and  main  into  orgies,  play  and  love  adventures, 
and  made  such  capital  enemies  of  hard  drinkers,  ruined 
card-players,  and  deceived  husbands  that  one  fine  morning 
he  was  found  in  a  blind  alley  at  the  end  of  the  Vecchio 
bridge,  stabbed  in  five  or  six  places. 

Poor  Jeanne  of  Austria  was  not  happy;  she  was  Grand 
Duchess  in  name,  but  Bianca  Capello  was  Grand  Duchess 
in  reality.  For  employment,  for  pardon,  and  for  favours 
people  addressed  themselves  to  the  Venetian.  The  Venetian 
was  all  powerful ;  she  had  her  pages,  her  court,  and  her  flat- 
terers; only  the  poor  went  to  the  Grand  Duchess  Jeanne. 
However,  Jeanne  was  a  pious  and  strict  woman,  as  the 
princesses  of  the  House  of  Austria  usually  are ;  she  religiously 
carried  her  griefs  to  God.  God  inclined  his  ear  unto  her, 
saw  how  she  suffered,  and  took  her  from  the  world. 

Without  reproaching  him  about  his  love,  she  begged 
Francesco   to   live   more   religiously   in   future.     Francesco, 


BIANCA    CAPELLO  153 

bathing  her  hands  with  his  tears,  promised  her  that  he 
would  never  see  Bianca  again.  Jeanne  gave  a  sad  smile, 
shook  her  head  doubtfully,  murmured  a  prayer  in  which  the 
Grand  Duke  heard  his  name  several  times,  and  died.  By 
this  marriage  she  left  three  daughters  and  a  son. 

For  four  months  Francesco  kept  his  word;  for  four 
months  Bianca  was  not  exiled,  but  was  absent  from  Florence. 
But  Bianca  knew  her  power;  she  allowed  time  for  the  Grand 
Duke's  sorrow,  remorse,  and  vows  to  pass  away;  then,  one 
day  she  put  herself  directly  in  his  path;  sorrow,  remorse, 
and  vows, — all  were  forgotten. 

She  had  for  a  confessor  a  Capuchin,  who  was  as  adroit 
and  intriguing  as  a  Jesuit ;  she  sent  him  to  the  Prince.  The 
Prince  told  him  of  his  remorse;  the  Capuchin  said  that  the 
only  way  to  quiet  himself  was  to  marry  Bianca.  The  Grand 
Duke  had  already  thought  so  himself.  His  father,  Cosmo 
the  Great,  had  given  him  an  example  by  marrying  Camilla 
Martelli  in  his  old  age.  People  protested  when  that  mar- 
riage took  place,  but  afterwards  they  kept  quiet.  Francesco 
thought  that  it  would  be  the  same  in  his  case  as  it  was  in 
Cosmo's;  and,  always  encouraged  by  the  Capuchin,  he 
decided  to  bring  his  conscience  and  his  desires  into  harmony. 

For  a  long  time  the  courtiers,  noting  that  the  wind  blew 
from  this  quarter,  had  spoken  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  such 
unions  as  the  most  natural  things  in  the  world,  and  had 
quoted  every  example  that  their  memories  could  furnish  of 
princes  who  had  chosen  their  wives  from  non-princely  fam- 
ilies. One  flattering  fact  decided  Francesco.  At  this 
moment,  Venice,  having  need  of  Florence,  declared  Bianca 


154  BIANCA    CAPELLO 

Capello  a  daughter  of  the  Republic,  so  that  he  secretly  mar- 
ried Bianca  in  the  chapel  of  the  Pitti  Palace,  while  Cardinal 
Ferdinand  was  looking  for  a  wife  for  him  in  every  court 
of  Europe. 

It  had  been  decided  to  keep  this  marriage  secret,  but  that 
did  not  suit  the  Grand  Duchess;  she  had  not  gone  so  far  in 
order  to  stop  in  her  course,  and  six  months  had  not  elapsed 
before  it  was  known  that  she  had  taken  the  place  of  Jeanne 
of  Austria  on  the  throne  as  well  as  in  private. 

Three  years  after  the  marriage  of  Francesco  and  Bianca, 
that  is  to  say  about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1585,  the  young 
Archduke  died,  leaving  the  throne  of  Tuscany  without  a 
direct  heir;  or,  in  default  of  a  direct  heir,  the  Cardinal 
Ferdinand  should  become  Grand  Duke  on  the  death  of  his 
brother. 

In  1576,  the  Grand  Duke  Ferdinand  and  Bianca  had  had 
a  son;  but  this  son  was  illegitimate,  and  could  not  succeed 
his  father ;  moreover,  singular  stories  had  been  related  regard- 
ing his  birth.  The  throne  then  would  revert  to  the 
Cardinal  unless  the  Grand  Duchess  should  have  another 
child,  and  Francesco  began  to  despair  of  such  happiness 
when  Bianca  announced  her  pretended  hopes. 

This  time  the  Cardinal  decided  to  take  up  his  residence  in 
the  Pitti  Palace.  The  Cardinal's  arrival  was  not  very 
agreeable  to  Bianca,  who  was  not  deceived  as  to  the  true 
reason  for  the  renewal  of  fraternal  affection.  Bianca  knew 
that  the  Cardinal  was  playing  the  spy  at  every  moment. 

One  day  the  Duchess's  confessor  entered,  a  Capuchin  in 
a  long  robe.     The  Cardinal  approached  him  and  took  him 


BIANCA    CAPELLO  I55 

by  the  arm,  begging  him  to  give  his  affectionate  regards  to 
his  sister.  The  Cardinal  thought  he  felt  something  strange 
in  his  wide  sleeve;  he  put  in  his  hand  and  drew  out  a  fine 
boy. 

The  monk,  knowing  it  was  best  to  avoid  scandal,  asked 
the  Cardinal  what  he  should  do.  The  Cardinal  told  him  to 
f^o  into  the  Grand  Duchess's  room  and  tell  her  what  had 
happened.  The  Grand  Duchess  saw  that  she  would  have  to 
renounce  giving  an  heir  to  the  throne  this  time.  The 
Cardinal,  for  his  part,  kept  his  mouth  shut  and  said  nothing 
whatever  of  thi:  frustrated  scheme. 

The  result  wao  that  nothing  interrupted  the  harmony  that 
reigned  between  the  two  brothers.  In  the  following 
autumn,  the  Cardinal  was  even  invited  by  Francesco  to 
spend  his  two  months  of  Villegiatura  at  Poggia  a  Cajano. 
He  accepted,  for  he  wr.3  a  great  lover  of  the  chase,  and  the 
castle  of  Poggia  a  Cajano  was  one  of  the  Grand  Duke  Fran- 
cesco's best  game-preserves. 

On  the  very  day  of  the  Cardinal's  arrival,  Bianca,  who 
knew  that  the  Cardinal  was  fond  of  a  certain  kind  of  tart, 
made  one  for  him  herself.  The  Cardinal  learned  from  the 
Grand  Duke  Francesco  of  his  sister-in-law's  attention,  and, 
as  his  belief  in  her  reconciliation  with  him  was  not  very  deep, 
thi3  graciousness  on  her  part  gave  him  some  uneasiness. 
Happily,  the  Cardinal  possessed  an  opal  that  had  been  given 
him  by  '!Rope  Sixtus  V.,  which  possessed  the  property  of  turn- 
ing dull!  on  the  approach  of  poison.  The  Cardinal  did  not 
neglect  putting  Bianca's  tart  to  the  test.  It  happened  as  he 
had  imagincJ.     On  the  approach  of  the  tart  the  opal  became 


156  BIANCA    CAPELLO 

dim,  whereupon  the  Cardinal  declared  that  upon  second 
thoughts  he  would  not  eat  the  tart.  The  Duke  insisted  for 
a  moment.  Seeing  that  his  entreaties  were  useless:  "  Oh, 
well !  "  he  said,  turning  towards  his  wife,  "  since  my  brother 
will  not  eat  his  favourite  dish,  I  will  eat  it  myself,  so  that 
the  Grand  Duchess  shall  not  have  made  this  pastry  for  noth- 
ing," and  he  helped  himself  to  a  piece  of  the  tart. 

Bianca  made  a  gesture  to  prevent  him;  but  she  stopped. 
The  position  was  horrible:  she  would  have  to  acknowledge 
her  crime,  or  allow  her  husband  to  die  of  poison.  She 
rapidly  surveyed  her  past  and  saw  that  she  had  exhausted  all 
earthly  pleasures  and  attained  the  height  of  worldly  grand- 
eur. Her  decision  was  as  rapid  as  it  had  been  on  the  day 
that  she  left  Venice  with  Pietro;  she  cut  a  piece  of  the  tart 
similar  to  that  the  Grand  Duke  had  taken,  held  out  one  hand 
to  him,  and  from  the  other  eat  the  piece  of  tart  with  a  smile. 

On  the  following  day  Francesco  and  Bianca  were  dead. 
At  Ferdinand's  order,  a  physician  opened  their  bodies  and 
declared  that  they  had  succumbed  to  a  malignant  fever. 
Three  days  later  the  Cardinal  threw  his  biretta  to  the  dogs 
and  ascended  the  throne. 


MADAME     DE     POMPADOUR 

(1720—1764) 
ARSENE   HOUSSAYE 

MADAME  DE  POMPADOUR  was  born  m  Paris 
in  1720.  She  always  said  it  was  1722.  It  is 
affirmed  that  Poisson,  her  father,  at  least  the  husband  of  her 
mother,  was  a  sutler  in  the  army;  some  historians  state  that 
he  was  the  butcher  of  the  Hospital  of  the  Invalides,  and  was 
condemned  to  be  hung;  according  to  Voltaire,  she  was  the 
daughter  of  a  farmer  of  Fertesous-Jouarre.  What  matters 
it  since  he  who  was  truly  a  father  to  her  was  the  farmer- 
general,  Lenormant  de  Tourneheim.  This  gentleman, 
thinking  her  worthy  of  his  fortune,  took  her  to  his  home,  and 
brought  her  up  as  if  she  had  been  his  own  daughter.  He 
gave  her  the  name  of  Jeanne-Antoinette.  She  bore  till  she 
was  sixteen  years  of  age  this  sweet  name  of  Jeanne.  From 
her  infancy  she  exhibited  a  passion  for  music  and  drawing. 
All  the  first  masters  of  the  day  were  summoned  to  the  hotel 
of  Lenormant  de  Tourneheim.  Her  masters  did  not  dis- 
gust Jeanne  with  the  fine  arts  of  which  she  was  so  fond. 
Her  talent  was«  soon  widely  known.  Fontenelle,  Voltaire, 
Duclos,  and  Crebillon,  who  were  received  at  the  hotel  as 
men  of  wit,  went  about  everywhere,  talking  of  her  beauty, 
her  grace,  and  talent. 

157 


158  MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR 

Madame  de  Pompadour  was  an  example  of  a  woman  that 
was  both  handsome  and  pretty ;  the  lines  of  her  face  possessed 
all  the  harmony  and  elevation  of  a  creation  of  Raphael's ;  but 
instead  of  the  elevated  sentiment  with  which  that  great  mas- 
ter animated  his  faces,  there  was  the  smiling  expression  of  a 
Parisian  woman.  She  possessed  in  the  highest  degree  all 
that  gives  to  the  face  brilliancy,  charm,  and  sportive  gaiety. 
No  lady  at  Court  had  then  so  noble  and  coquettish  a  bearing, 
such  delicate  and  attractive  features,  so  elegant  and  graceful 
a  figure.  Her  mother  used  always  to  say :  "  A  king  alone 
is  worthy  of  my  daughter."  Jeanne  had  an  early  presenti- 
ment of  a  throne ;  at  first,  from  the  ambitious  longings  of  her 
mother;  afterward,  because  she  believed  that  she  was  in 
love  with  the  King.  "  She  confessed  to  me,"  says  Voltaire, 
in  his  Memoirs,  "  that  she  had  a  secret  presentiment  that  the 
King  would  fall  in  love  with  her,  and  that  she  had  a  violent 
inclination  for  him." 

The  farmer-general  had  a  nephew,  Lenormant  d'Etioles. 
He  was  an  amiable  young  man,  and  had  the  character  and 
manners  of  a  gentleman ;  he  was  heir  to  the  immense  fortune 
of  the  farmer-general,  at  least  according  to  law.  Jeanne, 
on  her  side,  had  some  claim  to  a  share  of  this  fortune.  It 
was  a  very  simple  way  of  making  all  agreed,  by  marrying 
the  young  people.  Jeanne,  as  we  have  seen,  was  already  in 
love  with  the  King;  she  married  d'Etioles  without  shifting 
her  point  of  view:  Versailles,  Versailles,  that  was  her  only 
horizon..  Her  young  husband  became  desperately  en- 
armoured  of  her;  but  this  passion  of  his,  which  amounted 
almost  to  madness,  she  never  felt  in  the  least.     She  received 


MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR  I59 

it  with  resignation,  as  a  misfortune  that  could  not  last 
long. 

The  hotel  of  the  newly-married  couple,  Rue-Croix-des 
Petits-Champs,  was  established  on  a  lordly  footing;  the  best 
company  in  Paris  left  the  fashionable  salons  for  that  of 
Madame  d'Etioles;  until  that  time,  there  had  never  been 
such  a  gorgeous  display  of  luxury  in  France.  The  young 
bride  hoped  by  this  means  to  make  something  of  a  noise  at 
Court,  and  thus  excite  the  curiosity  of  the  King.  Day  after 
day  passed  away  in  feasts  and  brilliant  entertainments. 
Celebrated  actors,  poets,  artists,  and  foreigners,  all  made 
their  rendez-vous  at  this  hotel,  the  mistress  of  which  was  its 
life  and  ornament;  all  the  world  went  there,  in  one  word, 
except  the  King. 

Monsieur  d'Etioles  had  a  deserted  chateau  in  the  forest 
of  Senart;  Madame  d'Etioles,  having  heard  that  the  King 
often  hunted  in  that  forest,  told  her  husband  that  the 
physicians  had  recommended  the  air  of  the  forest  for  her 
nervous  attacks.  Her  husband,  who  did  not  foresee  the 
design  of  his  wife,  furnished  the  chateau  with  great  luxury. 
Once  installed  in  their  new  quarters,  Madame  d'Etioles 
ordered  three  or  four  coaches  of  a  light,  fairy-like  build,  in 
order  to  take  the  air  for  the  benefit  of  her  attacks  of  the 
vapours.  As  she  was  always  on  the  watch,  she  often  met  the 
King  in  the  forest ;  at  first  the  King  passed  without  noticing 
her,  then  he  remarked  her  fine  horses.  "  What  a  beautiful 
phaeton !  "  said  he,  meeting  it  for  the  third  time.  Finally, 
he  noticed  herself,  but  confined  himself  to  an  observation 
on  her  beauty. 


i6o  MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR 

One  afternoon  Louis  XV.  was  overtaken  by  a  storm  while 
hunting  in  the  forest.  He  entered  the  Chateau  d*Etioles; 
but  Madame  de  Chateauroux  was  with  him.  Madame 
d'Etioles  was  not  disheartened;  she  continued  to  pass  before 
the  eyes  of  the  royal  hunter,  "  sometimes  like  a  goddess 
descended  from  heaven,  at  one  time  dressed  in  an  azure  robe, 
seated  in  a  rose-coloured  phaeton;  at  others,  dressed  in  rose- 
colour,  in  an  azure  phaeton." 

Madame  d'Etioles  passed  two  summers  without  obtain- 
ing anything  from  the  King  but  a  careless  glance.  For  an 
ambitious  woman  this  was  not  enough ;  she  returned  to  Paris 
at  the  end  of  the  season,  determined  to  change  her  mode  of 
attack.  Madame  de  Chateauroux  was  dead,  the  throne  was 
vacant,  there  was  not  an  hour  to  lose,  for  under  Louis  XV., 
"  the  queen  is  dead,  long  live  the  queen!  " 

According  to  some  biographers,  the  first  rendez-vous  was 
at  Versailles;  Madame  d'Etioles  was  seated  upon  the  throne 
from  the  evening  until  the  next  morning;  but  as  soon  as  the 
sun  arose,  the  King  bade  her  farewell,  according  to  his  usual 
custom.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  quite  certain  that  after 
the  first  interview  a  whole  month  passed,  without  her  hearing 
anything  from  Louis  XV.  Her  grief  was  extreme;  she 
waited,  she  waited;  she  could  not  thus  exist  any  longer. 
Every  noise,  every  movement,  she  thought  was  a  despatch 
from  Versailles;  the  hours  passed  at  the  same  time  too  fast 
and  too  slow.  The  King  had  forgotten  her!  Upon  what 
do  the  destinies  of  a  nation  hang?  The  weakness  of  human 
passion!  She  who  was  for  nearly  twenty-four  years  the 
mistress  of  the  King  and  sovereign  of  France,  commenced 


MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR  l6i 

her  career  by  being  forgotten  and  abandoned !  Finally,  one 
day  the  King  said  to  his  valet,  that  he  was  ennuyed,  "  By-the- 
by,  Binet,  that  woman !  "  "  Indeed,  sire,  she  is,  no  doubt, 
still  more  ennuyed  than  even  your  Majesty."  "  Do  you 
think  so?"  "She  passes  her  days  in  weeping."  "Well, 
then,  go  and  tell  her  I  will  wipe  away  her  tears." 

Madame  d'Etioles  returned.  The  King  found  in  her 
more  charms  than  at  the  first  interview,  for  on  the  next 
morning  when  the  sun  arose,  she  remained  upon  the  throne. 

It  is  known  that  Louis  XV.  passed  a  life  of  constant 
ennui.  "  The  people  are  suffering,"  said  the  Due  de 
Choisel  to  him  one  day.  "  I  am  ennuyed/'  answered  the  King. 

Madame  d'Etioles  established  her  empire  by  varying 
the  life  of  her  royal  lover,  by  means  of  hunting  parties, 
promenades,  fetes,  theatrical  representations,  suppers.  In 
the  first  place,  she  had  the  art  of  metamorphosing  herself 
every  hour  in  the  day.  No  one  knew  better  than  she  did 
how  to  vary  the  play  of  her  features:  at  one  time  she  was 
as  languishing  and  sentimental  as  a  Madonna  in  heavenly 
reverie;  at  another  she  was  as  full  of  life,  as  gay,  and 
coquettish  as  a  Spanish  girl.  She  had  to  a  wonderful  degree 
the  gift  of  tears;  she  displayed  so  much  art  in  weeping  well, 
that  she  gave  to  her  tears,  says  a  poet,  the  value  of  pearls. 
Whoever  saw  her  in  the  morning,  proud,  imperious,  a  queen, 
in  all  the  splendour  of  her  power,  found  her  in  the  evening 
sportive,  giddy,  a  madcap,  presiding  over  her  little  suppers 
with  the  spirit  of  an  actress  after  the  play.  The  Abbe 
Soulavie,  who  saw  her  often,  has  left  behind  him  a  finished 
portrait  of  her:     *'  Besides  the  agreableness  of  a  beautiful 


i62  MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR 

face,  full  of  vivacity,  Madame  de  Pompadour  possessed  in 
perfection  the  art  of  creating  for  herself  another  face,  and 
this  new  creation  was  another  result  of  her  studies  upon  the 
relations  between  her  soul  and  her  physiognomy.  Without 
altering  her  attitude,  her  visage  was  a  perfect  Proteus."  The 
gift  of  tears  she  only  had,  like  other  actresses,  in  the  presence 
of  the  public.  Madame  de  Pompadour's  public  was 
Louis  XV. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  study  the  political  system  of 
Madame  de  Pompadour,  If,  Indeed,  she  had  any  system  at 
all.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  she  had  some  fixed  opinions, 
but,  most  generally,  they  were  caprices.  However,  the  Due 
de  Choiseul,  who  held  the  offices  of  three  ministers,  who 
disposed  of  all  the  power  of  government,  followed  to  the 
letter  the  policy  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  In  overturning 
the  system  of  Louis  XIV.,  In  forming  an  alliance  with 
Austria,  In  forming  a  league,  or  rather  a  family  compact 
with  Italy  and  Spain.  The  policy  of  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour united  Corsica  to  France:  thus  Bonaparte,  who  was 
born  after  the  death  of  the  Marchioness,  owed  to  her  his 
title  of  a  French  citizen. 

Women  never  live  for  the  future:  their  reign  is  from 
day  to  day,  for  It  Is  the  power  of  beauty  only  which  dimin- 
ishes as  It  advances.  The  women  of  genius  who  have 
attempted  to  govern  the  world  have  never  contemplated  the 
clouds  of  a  distant  horizon;  they  have  been  able  to  look 
about  them,  but  never  at  a  distance  from  themselves. 
"  After  me  the  deluge! "  was  the  saying  of  Madame  de 
Pompadour. 


MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR  163 

The  Eighteenth  Century  was  a  century  of  striking  con- 
trasts: the  first  minister  who  succeeded  Cardinal  de  Fleury 
was  Madame  de  Pompadour.  Under  the  Cardinal,  a  blind 
superstition  protected  the  throne  against  Parliament;  under 
the  Marchioness,  we  see  philosophy  arising,  which  is  destined 
to  worry  in  their  turn  both  clergy  and  Parliament.  Under 
Madame  de  Pompadour,  the  King,  if  he  had  been  as  bold 
as  she  was,  would  have  been  more  of  a  king  than  ever. 
The  Cardinal  was  miserly  as  an  administrator,  the 
Marchioness  showed  herself  as  prodigal  as  a  mistress,  saying 
that  money  ought  to  flow  from  the  throne  in  a  full  current, 
in  a  generous  stream,  that  should  overflow  the  whole  state. 
The  Cardinal  had  been  hostile  to  Austria  and  favourable  to 
Prussia;  the  Marchioness  made  war  against  Frederick,  in 
order  to  please  Maria  Theresa.  The  battle  of  Rosbach  was 
a  failure,  but,  as  she  herself  asked,  had  she  the  power  of 
making  heroes? 

Is  it  right  for  the  historian  to  blame  this  woman  for  all 
the  disgrace  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.?  She  reached  the 
throne  at  the  moment  when  royalty  by  the  grace  of  God  was 
disappearing  before  the  sovereignty  of  public  opinion. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done  at  Versailles,  for  in  Paris  the 
power  was  already  in  the  hands  of  Voltaire,  Montesquieu, 
Jean  Jacques,  and  Diderot.  Madame  de  Pompadour  had 
so  just  an  opinion  of  the  power  of  this  sovereignty  that  she 
anticipated  it.  Did  she  not  protect  to  the  utmost  the 
philosophers,  those  even  who  were  destined  to  overthrow 
the  throne  upon  which  she  was  seated?  The  artists  who 
have  painted  her  have  never  forgotten  to  represent  in  her 


i64  MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR 

pictures  such  revolutionary  books  as  the  Encyclopedia,  the 
Philosophical  Dictionary,  the  Spirit  of  the  Laws,  and  the 
Social  Contract. 

Madame  de  Pompadour  loved  revenge ;  this  was  her  great 
fault.  For  a  single  vrord  she  imprisoned  Latude  in  the 
Bastille;  for  a  sonnet,  she  exiled  Maurepas.  Frederick 
called  her  influence  the  petticoat  reign;  the  Seven  Years* 
War  was  the  consequence. 

Louis  XV.,  always  religious,  at  least  after  supper,  trusting 
the  destinies  of  France  to  Providence,  used  to  say  that  God 
alone  had  hands  sufficiently  strong  to  hold  the  reins  of  gov- 
ernment. He,  therefore,  looked  with  pity  upon  the  pro- 
found deliberations  of  his  ministers.  "What  matters  it?" 
he  used  to  say  to  Madame  de  Pompadour,  "  little  storms 
will  be  sure  to  be  raised  from  all  they  do,  but  shall  we  not 
be  under  cover?"  From  all  these  storms,  badly  dispersed, 
there  arose  a  tempest  which  overturned  the  throne. 

In  order  to  preserve  her  empire,  Madame  de  Pompadour 
condescended  to  all  kinds  of  meanness  and  humiliation.  She 
banished  the  Jesuits  in  order  to  make  friends  with  some 
members  of  the  Parliament;  she  banished  the  Parliament  to 
make  friends  with  the  clergy.  In  order  to  prevent  her  royal 
lover  from  taking  another  acknowledged  mistress  from  the 
ladies  of  the  Court,  she  invented  that  harem  without  bril- 
liancy or  romance  which  was  called  the  Parc-aux-Cerfs,  "  the 
pillow  of  Louis  XV. 's  debauchery,"  as  Chateaubriand  called 
it.  Finally,  hated  and  despised  by  all  France,  Madame  de 
Pompadour  said  to  Louis  XV.:  "  Keep  me  by  you,  I  pray: 
it  is  I  who  protect  you!     I  assume  upon  my  head  all  the 


MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR  165 

hatred  of  the  whole  of  France;  the  times  are  bad  for  kings; 
as  soon  as  I  am  gone,  all  the  insults  which  are  cast  upon  the 
Marchioness  de  Pompadour  will  be  heaped  upon  the  King !  " 

Madame  de  Pompadour  spent  her  last  days  in  deep 
despondency.  Since  she  had  reached  the  decline  of  her 
favour  and  her  reign,  she  had  no  more  friends ;  but  the  King 
himself  still  submitted  to  her  influence,  but  did  not  love 
her  any  longer. 

It  has  been  said  that  she  died  of  poison,  administered  either 
by  the  Jesuits,  who  overwhelmed  her  with  anonymous  letters, 
or  by  her  enemies  at  Versailles.  Madame  de  Pompadour,  all 
sensible  people  think  so,  died  because  she  had  reached  the 
age  of  forty-four,  because  she  owed  her  power  to  her  beauty 
alone,  and  because  she  did  not  wish  to  survive  her  beauty. 
She  suffered  a  long  time  in  silence,  concealing  always, 
beneath  a  pale  smile,  death,  the  approach  of  which  she 
already  felt;  at  last  she  betook  herself  to  her  bed,  never  to 
rise  again.  She  was  at  her  Chateau  de  Choisy ;  the  King  and 
his  courtiers  did  not  believe  that  her  disease  was  serious,  but 
she  did  not  blind  herself.  She  begged  the  King  to  conduct 
her  to  Versailles;  she  wished  to  die  upon  the  theatre  of  her 
glory,  to  die  like  a  queen  in  a  royal  palace,  giving  her  com- 
mands to  the  last,  and  beholding  at  her  feet  a  crowd  of 
courtiers. 

She  died  in  April  (April  15,  1764),  like  Diane  de 
Poitiers,  Gabrielle  d'Estrees,  and  Madame  de  Maintenon. 
The  cure  of  Madeleine  attended  her  in  her  last  moments. 
When  he  bowed  after  having  given  her  the  blessing,  she  said 
to  him,  rousing  herself,  for  she  was  nearly  dead :     '*  Wait, 


166  MADAME    DE    POMPADOUR 

my  dear  cure,  we  will  depart  together"  The  King  had, 
till  then  exhibited  towards  her  a  friendship  based  on  remem- 
brance and  gratitude;  but  as  soon  as  she  had  breathed  her 
last  sigh,  he  only  troubled  himself  about  the  means  of  getting 
rid  of  her  mortal  remains.  He  ordered  her  to  be  taken  to 
her  hotel  in  Paris.  When  the  carriage,  which  was  bearing 
away  the  body  of  the  dead,  had  started,  the  King,  sitting 
at  one  of  the  windows  of  the  palace,  and  observing  a  shower 
that  was  pouring  down  in  torrents  upon  Versailles,  said  with 
a  smile,  both  sadly  and  jokingly,  "  The  Marchioness  will 
have  bad  weather  for  her  journey.'* 


BESS    OF    HARDWICK,    COUNTESS    OF 
SHREWSBURY 

(1518— 1608) 

THOMAS  SECCOMBE 

ELIZABETH  TALBOT,  Countess  of  Shrewsbury, 
known  as  "Bess  of  Hardwick,"  born  in  15 18,  was 
the  fourth  daughter  of  John  Hardwick  of  Hardwick,  Derby- 
shire, the  sixth  squire  of  the  name  who  possessed  the  estate. 
Her  mother  was  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Thomas  Leake  of 
Hasland  in  the  same  county. 

The  "  beautiful  and  discreet "  Eh'zabeth  was  married  at 
fourteen  years  of  age  to  Robert  Barlow  of  Barlow,  near 
Dronfield,  son  and  heir  of  Arthur  Barlow  by  a  sister  of 
Sir  John  Chaworth  of  Wyverton.  The  name  is  often  given 
as  Barley  of  Barley,  by  which  it  is  probable  that  the  pro- 
nunciation is  indicated.  The  bridegroom  also  was  very 
young,  and  died  soon  after  the  marriage,  on  Feb.  2,  1533. 
but  his  large  estate  was  settled  upon  his  widow  and  her 
heirs.  She  remained  a  widow  until  1549,  when  on  August 
20,  at  Bradgate,  in  Leicestershire,  a  seat  of  the  Marquis 
of  Dorset,  she  became  the  third  wife  of  Sir  William  Caven- 
dish. According  to  a  manuscript  memorandum  in  Caven- 
dish's own  hand,  the  marriage  was  celebrated  "  at  2  of  the 
clock  after  midnight."  Sir  William  had  so  great  an  affection 
for  his  third  wife  that  "  on  her  desire  he  sold  his  estate  in 

167 


i68  BESS    OF    HARDWICK 

the  southern  parts  of  England  to  purchase  lands  in  Derby- 
shire where  her  kindred  lived."  From  some  of  her  relatives 
he  purchased  the  estate  of  Chatsworth,  and  began  there  the 
noble  manor-house  which,  upon  his  death  (Oct.  25,  1557), 
he  left  his  widow  to  finish.  By  her  second  husband  alone  had 
Bess  of  Hardwick  any  issue;  of  these,  six  arrived  at 
maturity,  three  sons  and  three  daughters,  and  two  of  the 
sons  afford  a  noteworthy  example  of  two  brothers  founding 
two  several  dukedoms,  those  of  Devonshire  and  Newcastle. 

Lady  Cavendish  took  to  her  third  husband  Sir  William 
St.  Loe  (variously  spelt  St.  Lo  and  St.  Lowe)  of  Tormarton, 
Gloucestershire,  a  gentleman  of  ancient  knightly  family  in 
Somerset,  who  was  captain  of  the  guard  to  Queen  Elizabeth. 
He  was  the  possessor  of  "  divers  fair  lordships  in  Gloucester- 
shire, which  in  articles  of  marriage  she  took  care  should  be 
settled  on  her  and  her  own  heirs  in  default  of  issue  by  him." 
When  not  in  attendance  at  Court,  St.  Loe  resided  at  Chats- 
worth.  His  wife  obtained  unbounded  influence  over  him, 
and  his  family  charged  her,  not  without  reason,  with  making 
an  improper  use  of  her  influence.  It  is  certain  that  upon  his 
death,  "  she  lived  to  enjoy  his  whole  estate,  excluding  his 
former  daughters  and  brothers." 

In  the  third  widowhood,  says  Bishop  White  Kennettj 
"  she  had  not  survived  her  charms  of  wit  and  beauty,  by 
which  she  captivated  the  then  greatest  subject  of  the  realm, 
George  Talbot,  sixth  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  whom  she  brought 
to  terms  of  the  greatest  honour  and  advantage  to  herself  and 
children;  for  he  not  only  yielded  to  a  considerable  jointure, 
but  to  an  union  of  families,  by  taking  Mary  Cavendish,  her 


S'M'iMJAM  CWMXi 


aii:iiii^:iii,iB!Sli!ffiiia!ili,i!!iiili;«ji!l!ii:iii!i;il|y:gg^ 

BESS  OK  HARDWUJK. 


BESS    OF    HARD  WICK  169 

youngest  daughter,  to  wife  of  Gilbert  Talbot,  his  second 
son,  and  afterwards  his  heir;  and  giving  the  Lady  Grace 
Talbot,  his  youngest  daughter,  to  Henry  Cavendish,  her 
eldest  son.  The  double  nuptials  for  which  she  thus  stipulated 
before  she  would  give  her  hand  to  Shrewsbury  were  solem- 
nised at  Sheffield  on  Feb.  9,  1567-68,  and  it  is  probable  that 
her  own  marriage  took  place  shortly  afterwards.  The  Queen 
heartily  approved  the  match,  and  it  was  in  the  following 
December  (1568),  that  she  decided  to  confide  the  custody 
of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  The  Countess  assisted  her  husband 
in  the  reception  of  Mary  at  Tutbury  on  Feb.  2,  1569.  Five 
years  later,  in  October,  1574,  while  Margaret,  Countess  of 
Lennox,  and  her  son  Charles  (the  younger  brother  of  Darn- 
ley)  were  on  their  way  from  London  to  Scotland,  the  Coun- 
tess of  Shrewsbury  entertained  them  at  Rufford.  During 
their  five  days'  sojourn  a  match  was  rapidly  arranged  by  the 
wily  hostess  between  young  Charles  and  her  daughter,  Eliza- 
beth Cavendish,  and  the  pair  were  actually  married  next 
month,  much  to  the  indignation  of  the  Queen.  Shrewsbury, 
in  an  exculpatory  letter  to  Burghley,  with  more  truth  than 
gallantry,  threw  the  blame  exclusively  upon  his  Countess. 
"  There  are  few  noblemen's  sons  in  England,"  he  wrote, 
"  that  she  hath  not  praid  me  to  dele  forre  at  one  tyme  or 
other;  so  I  did  for  my  lord  Rutland,  with  my  lord  Sussex, 
for  my  lord  Wharton  and  sundry  others;  and  now  this 
comes  unlocked  for  without  thankes  to  me." 

In  order  to  cool  this  unruly  ambition,  Elizabeth  sent  the 
Countess  to  the  Tower  soon  after  Christmas,  but  she  was 
allowed  to  join  her  husband  some  three  months  later.     In 


lyo  BESS    OF    HARDWICK 

1575  her  daughter  became  mother  of  Arabella,  who  was 
afterwards  well  known  as  Arabella  Stuart.  Early  in  1582, 
upon  the  death  of  her  daughter,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  the 
Countess  wrote  several  letters  on  behalf  of  her  orphaned 
grand-daughter,  Arabella,  to  Burghley  and  Walsingham, 
being  specially  anxious  to  get  her  maintenance  raised  from 
£200  to  £600  a  year.  She  was  at  first  genuinely  attached 
to  her  grandchild,  but  she  had  completely  alienated  her  by 
her  tyranny  before  March,  1603,  when  Arabella  was  removed 
from  Hardwick  to  the  care  of  Henry  Grey,  sixth  Earl  of 
Kent,  and  was  disinherited  by  a  codicil  to  her  grand- 
mother's will.  Shrewsbury  was  relieved  of  his  charge  of  the 
Scottish  Queen  in  1584,  not  before  he  had  been  taunted  by 
his  wife  with  making  love  to  his  captive.  Fuller  records  that 
at  Court  upon  one  occasion,  when  the  Queen  demanded  how 
the  Queen  of  Scots  did,  the  Countess  said :  "  Madam,  she 
cannot  do  ill  while  she  is  with  my  husband,  and  I  begin  to 
grow  jealous,  they  are  so  great  together."  It  is  most  prob- 
able that  the  Countess  simulated  a  jealousy  which  she  did  not 
feel  in  order  to  prejudice  the  Queen  against  her  husband, 

A  more  genuine  cause  for  conjugal  discord  was  the  inju- 
rious ascendency  which  the  Earl  allowed  a  female  domestic, 
named  Eleanor  Britton,  to  obtain  over  him  during  his  later 
years.  But  the  Countess  allowed  no  vexations  of  this  sort 
to  interfere  with  the  vigorous  administration  of  her  vast 
estates,  estimated  as  worth  £60,000  a  year  (in  modern  cur- 
rency). Her  extraordinary  zeal  as  a  builder  was  attributed, 
says  Walpole,  to  a  prediction  that  she  should  not  die  as  long 
as  she  was  building.     In  addition  to  the  fine  Elizabethan 


BESS    OF    HARDWICK  171 

mansion  at  Chatsworth  (replaced  by  the  well-known  Palla- 
dian  structure  of  the  late  Seventeenth  Century),  she  built 
the  seats  of  Oldcotes,  Worksop,  and  Bolsover,  and,  after  the 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury's  death  in  1590,  she  set  to  work  upon  a 
new  Hardwick  Hall,  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the 
ancient  seat  of  her  family,  which  remained  standing.  Over 
the  chimney-piece  in  the  dining-room  are  still  to  be  seen  her 
arms  and  initials  dated  1597  (the  year  of  the  completion  of 
the  work)  ;  while  the  letters  "  E.  S."  appear  in  most  of  the 
rooms,  with  the  triple  badge  of  Shrewsbury,  Cavendish,  and 
Hardwick. 

At  Hardwick  she  spent  the  days  of  her  fourth  widowhood 
in  abundant  wealth  and  splendour,  feared  by  many,  and 
courted  by  a  numerous  train  of  children,  grandchildren,  and 
great-grandchildren.  She  was  very  ill  in  April,  1605,  when 
her  grand-daughter  Arabella  ventured  down  to  Hardwick 
to  see  her,  armed  with  a  letter  from  the  King,  on  the  strength 
of  which  "  Bess  grudgingly  bestowed  a  gold  cup  and  three 
hundred  guineas  "  upon  her  former  favourite.  "  A  woman  of 
masculine  understanding  and  conduct,"  concludes  Lodge; 
"  proud,  furious,  selfish,  and  unfeeling,  she  was  a  builder,  a 
buyer  and  seller  of  estates,  a  money-lender,  a  farmer,  and  a 
merchant  of  lead,  coals,  and  timber;  when  disengaged  from 
these  employments,  she  intrigued  alternately  with  Elizabeth 
and  Mary,  always  to  the  prejudice  and  terror  of  her 
husband." 

She  lived  to  a  great  age,  immensely  rich,  continually 
flattered,  but  seldom  deceived,  and  died  ("in  a  hard  frost 
while  her  builders  could  not  work  ")  on  Feb.  13,  1608,  at 


172  BESS    OF    HARD  WICK 

her  seat  of  Hardwick.  She  was  buried  in  the  Cavendish 
mausoleum  in  the  south  aisle  of  All  Hallows  Church,  Derby, 
where  is  a  splendid  mural  monument  to  her  memory.  This 
"  she  took  good  care  to  erect  in  her  own  lifetime."  In  a 
recess  in  the  lower  part  is  the  figure  of  the  Countess,  with  her 
head  reclined  on  a  cushion  and  her  hands  uplifted  in  the 
attitude  of  prayer. 

At  Hardwick  Hall  are  two  paintings  of  the  Countess. 
One  represents  her  in  early  life  in  a  close-fitting  black  dress, 
with  rich  brown  hair.  The  other  (of  which  a  copy  is  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery)  was  painted  by  Cornelius 
Janssen,  when  she  was  well  stricken  in  years,  but  still 
retained  traces  of  beauty;  the  expression  of  countenance  is 
clearly  indicative  of  shrewdness,  energy,  and  strength  of  pur- 
pose.   The  second  portrait  was  engraved  by  George  Vertue. 


GABRIELLE    D'ESTR^ES 

(About  1571 — 1599) 
CHARLES   AUGUSTIN   SAINTE-BEUVE 

MADAME  GABRIELLE  was  the  fifth  of  six  daugh- 
ters, all  of  whom  created  a  sensation  in  the  world. 
Her  brother  was  the  Marquis  de  Coeuvres,  afterwards 
Marechal  d'Estrees.  He  was  a  man  of  much  penetration 
and  shrewdness,  a  gay  fellow,  and  so  clever  and  intriguing 
that  he  made  all  the  warriors  and  negotiators  appear  block- 
heads. 

One  of  her  sisters  was  Abbesse  de  Maubuisson,  whose 
unbridled  conduct  rendered  her  so  celebrated.  Gabrielle 
came  between  this  brother  and  sister;  she  appears  not  to  have 
possessed  so  much  talent  as  her  brother,  or  to  have  been  quite 
so  ill-regulated  as  her  sister  the  abbess;  but  we  must  not  be 
too  eager  to  scrutinise  her  conduct  during  those  early  years 
which  preceded  her  acquaintance  with  Henry  IV. 

This  Prince  saw  her  in  Picardy  about  1591,  at  the  time 
he  was  carrying  on  a  war  in  the  environs  of  Rouen  and  Paris. 
He  formed  almost  a  little  capital  at  Mantes,  and  from 
thence  he  flew  to  Mademoiselle  d'Estrees  for  diversion,  or 
else  induced  her  father  to  take  her  to  Mantes,  but  the  bustle 
there  was  a  source  of  annoyance  to  them.  Bellegarde,  who 
had  introduced  Gabrielle  to  the  King,  soon  repented  that  he 

173 


174  GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES 

had  done  so;  the  jealousy  and  rivalry  of  the  servant  and 
master  have  been  tolerably  described  in  the  history  of  Henry 
IV. *s  amours,  w^hich  w^as  written  by  a  person  living  at  the 
period,  Mademoiselle  Guise,  afterwards  Princess  de  Conti. 

Henry  IV.'s  passion  for  Gabrielle  seems  to  have  gone 
through  many  different  stages;  at  its  commencement  it 
appears  to  have  been  of  rather  a  coarse  nature.  In  order  to 
emancipate  M.  d'Estrees's  daughter  from  restraint,  the  King 
thought  the  best  thing  was  to  marry  her  to  a  gentleman  of 
Picardy,  M.  de  Liancourt.  It  has  been  asserted  that  he 
promised  to  go  to  her  deliverance  before  the  end  of  the 
wedding-day;  however,  he  did  not  keep  his  promise.  The 
marriage  was  not  considered  very  binding,  however,  and  the 
King,  as  soon  as  he  could,  endeavoured  to  dissolve  it.  He 
recognised  and  legitimated  the  three  children  that  he  had 
successively  by  Madame  de  Liancourt.  From  this  connection 
sprang  the  Vendomes,  a  valiant  and  dissolute  race,  of  which 
many  members  followed  the  original  example  both  in  irregu- 
larities and  deeds  of  prowess. 

While  Henry  IV.  was  away  from  Paris,  making  war 
in  order  to  recover  his  kingdom,  his  amours  with  Gabrielle 
had  not  become  a  matter  of  state  interest.  At  most 
the  King's  faithful  servants  and  companions  might  occa- 
sionally complain,  not  without  a  cause,  that  he  prolonged 
unnecessarily  these  expeditions  and  sieges  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  his  mistress's  residence,  but  when  Henry  entered 
Paris  and  became  King  of  his  rights,  all  the  details  of  his 
conduct  began  to  assume  an  air  of  importance,  and  Madame 
de  Liancourt  began  to  occupy  the  Parisians*  attention. 


>•  \  >  ^ 


GABRIELLE  D  ESTREES. 


GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES  175 

The  Estoile,  which  was  the  echo  of  the  lawyers'  opinions, 
as  well  as  that  of  the  bourgeoisie,  observes,  "  that  on  Tuesday, 
September  the  13th,  1594,  the  King  came  secretly  to  Paris, 
and  returned  the  next  day  in  his  coach  to  Saint  Germain-en- 
Laye,  accompanied  only  by  Madame  de  Liancourt.  At  his 
solemn  entry  into  Paris,  at  torchlight,  on  the  15  th  of  Septem- 
ber, the  King  passed  over  the  Pont  de  Notre  Dame  on  horse- 
back, about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening.  He  was  accom- 
panied by  a  large  body  of  cavalry,  and  was  surrounded  by 
the  flower  of  the  nobility."  He  wore  a  smiling  face  and  was 
quite  delighted  to  hear  the  people  shout  joyfully,  "  God  save 
the  King!" 

He  had  his  hat  in  his  hand  continually,  especially  when 
he  saluted  the  ladies,  who  were  gazing  from  the  windows. 
Madame  de  Liancourt  was  some  little  distance  before  him, 
in  a  magnificent  uncovered  litter  loaded  with  pearls  and 
precious  stones,  so  brilliant  that  they  quite  paled  the  light 
of  the  torches;  she  was  attired  in  a  dress  of  black  satin  orna- 
mented with  white  trimmings.  This  account  shows  us  that 
from  the  time  of  his  entry  into  his  reconquered  capital, 
Gabrielle  was  placed  on  the  footing  of  a  queen,  and  already 
affected  the  airs  of  royalty. 

For  Gabrielle  to  have  maintained  such  a  position  for  more 
than  four  years  without  any  decrease,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
with  increase  of  favour,  there  must  in  reality  have  been  a 
conjugal  interregnum.  Queen  Margaret,  Henry's  first  wife, 
was  now  so  only  in  name.  She  was  banished  to  her  Chateau 
d'Usson  in  Auvergne.  The  sole  thing  to  be  done  was  to  get 
her  to  agree  as  to  the  form  of  dissolving,  as  amicably  as  pos- 


176  GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES 

sible,  this  ill-assorted  union,  a  union  which  had  on  both  sides 
been  held  in  little  regard. 

Henry  IV.  was  therefore  an  acknowledged  widower 
for  this  number  of  years;  the  public  declaration  was  only 
wanting,  which,  since  his  conversion,  could  not  well  be  long 
delayed.  From  this  plausible  circumstance  it  was  that 
Gabrielle  contrived  to  hold  such  a  position  at  Court;  she 
filled  up  a  void;  for  few  have  imagined  that  she  aspired  in 
reality  to  the  dignity  itself.  However,  she  gradually  gained 
greater  favour,  and  the  King  became  attached  to  her  both 
from  habit  as  well  as  from  years.  She  advanced  a  step  with 
each  new  child  with  which  she  presented  him.  She  relin- 
quished the  name  of  Liancourt,  and  became  Marquise  de 
Monceaux  about  March,  1595;  then  in  July,  1596,  she  was 
created  Duchesse  de  Beaufort.  She  was  called  simply 
Madame  la  Marquise,  in  the  first  instance,  and  afterwards 
merely  Madame  la  Duchesse;  thus  by  degrees  she  ascended 
to  still  greater  good  fortune.  The  chief  president  of  the 
Parliament  in  Normandy,  Groulard,  informs  us  in  his  curious 
Memoirs,  how  far  she  was  treated  as  a  princess  by  the  King, 
and  how  she  was  presented  by  him  to  the  most  learned  magis- 
trates, as  a  person  to  whom  homage  was  due. 

Henry  IV.  went  to  Rouen  to  be  present  at  the  Assembly 
of  Notables.  It  was  here  that  he  made  the  following 
celebrated  harangue,  which  was  at  once  blunt,  military, 
and  to  the  purpose:  "I  have  not  summoned  you,  as  my 
predecessors  did,  to  induce  you  to  approve  of  my  intentions. 
I  have  assembled  you  that  I  might  receive  the  benefit  of  your 
counsels;  to  give  ear  to  them,  and  to  follow  them;  in  short, 


GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES  I77 

I  desire  to  place  myself  under  your  guidance ;  a  desire  which 
is  seldom  felt  by  kings,  greybeards,  and  conquerors;  but  the 
immense  love  I  bear  my  subjects,"  etc.,  etc.  He  made  this 
harangue  in  the  hall  of  the  house  where  he  took  his  abode, 
and  insisted  upon  having  Madame  la  Marquise's  opinion, 
for  which  purpose  she  concealed  herself  behind  some  tapestry. 
The  King  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  this  address,  to 
which  she  replied  she  had  never  heard  anything  better;  only 
she  had  been  very  much  surprised  when  he  talked  of  placing 
himself  under  their  guidance.  ''Ventre  saint  gris!  "  exclaimed 
the  King,  "  very  likely,  but  I  meant  with  my  sword  at  my 
side." 

During  this  sojourn  at  Rouen,  the  Marquise  gave  birth  to 
a  daughter,  at  the  monastery  of  Saint-Ouen,  and  her  baptism 
was  celebrated  with  all  the  ceremony  of  the  children  of  the 
House  of  France. 

The  first  few  years  which  followed  Henry  IV.'s  entry 
into  his  capital  were  not  as  prosperous  as  might  be  sup- 
posed; after  the  bursts  of  joy  for  deliverance,  fears  soon 
began  to  be  experienced.  Though  the  civil  war  was  brought 
to  a  conclusion,  the  contest  with  Spain  grew  more  violent  in 
the  heart  of  the  kingdom,  nay,  even  in  the  provinces  near 
Paris.  Unfortunate  seasons,  heavy  rains,  and  contagious 
diseases,  served  to  increase  the  already  many  forebodings,  and 
to  infect  the  imagination  of  the  people  in  general.  The 
ballets,  masquerades,  and  banquets,  which  were  given  at 
Court,  and  at  which  the  ladies  appeared  covered  with  precious 
stones,  in  the  most  extravagant  costumes,  formed  a  strange 
contrast  to  the  surrounding     misery.     To  these  entertain- 


1 78  GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES 

ments  Gabrielle  gave  the  tow,  "  On  Saturday,  the  I2th  of 
November,  1594,  a  handkerchief  v^as  displayed  by  an 
embroiderer  of  Paris,  w^hich  had  just  been  completed  for 
Madame  de  Liancourt;  she  was  to  w^ear  this  handkerchief 
the  next  day  at  the  ballet ;  and  was  to  pay  the  enormous  sum 
of  nineteen  hundred  crowns  for  it,  and  ready  money."  The 
few  particulars  that  we  gather  from  the  Estoile  concerning 
Gabrielle's  dresses  and  ornaments  are  not  at  all  exaggerated : 
an  historical  account  was  published  some  years  ago  of  an 
inventory  of  her  furniture  and  of  her  wardrobe.  This  inven- 
tory is  still  preserved  among  the  royal  archives:  nothing  can 
be  comparable  to  the  magnificence,  the  luxury,  the  refined 
extravagance  in  art,  which  was  to  be  observed  in  all  that 
surrounded  Gabrielle,  both  as  to  her  furniture,  and  as  to 
her  attire.  When  she  rode  on  horseback,  she  preferred  to 
wear  green.  "  On  Friday,  the  17th  of  March,  1595,"  says 
the  Estoile,  "  there  was  a  terrific  storm  of  thunder  and  light- 
ning, during  which  the  King  was  in  the  neighbourhood  hunt- 
ing with  his  Gabrielle  (lately  created  Marquise  de 
Monceaux)  by  his  side.  She  was  mounted  on  horseback  like 
a  man,  dressed  entirely  in  green,  and  returned  to  Paris  with 
him  in  the  same  style."  In  the  inventory  of  Gabrielle's  ward- 
robe, the  description  of  this  elegant  kind  of  riding-habit  may 
be  seen,  which  gives,  perhaps,  some  notion  of  that  to  which 
the  Estoile  alludes:  "A  hood  and  riding  petticoat  of  violet- 
coloured  satin,  embroidered  with  silver,  and  trimmed  here 
and  there  with  silver  lace  upon  a  ground-work  of  green 
satin;  the  hood  lined  with  green  gauffred  satin.  The  afore- 
said riding  petticoat  was  lined  with  violet-coloured  taffetas; 


GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES  I79 

the  hat  was  also  of  violet-coloured  taffetas,  and  trimmed  with 
silver,  valued  at  two  hundred  crowns." 

At  the  baptism  of  the  Constable's  son,  for  whom  the  King 
stood  godfather  (March  5,  1597),  the  Marquise  was  present, 
magnificently  attired  in  a  costume  entirely  green,  and  the 
King  amused  himself  in  arranging  her  head-dress,  telling  her 
that  she  had  not  enough  brilliants  in  her  hair — she  had  only 
twelve,  and  he  said  she  ought  to  have  had  fifteen. 

We  must  judge  of  the  style  of  Gabrielle's  beauty  by  the 
general  impression  it  created  at  the  time ;  this  will  help  us  to 
form  some  idea  of  her  attractions  in  spite  of  the  stiff  and 
cumbrous  dress  in  which  her  portraits  represent  her.  She 
had  a  fair  and  clear  complexion;  light  hair  threaded  with 
gold,  which  she  wore  turned  back  in  a  mass,  or  else  in  a 
fringe  of  short  curls;  she  had  a  fine  forehead,  a  delicately- 
shaped  and  regular  nose,  a  pretty  little  rosy  smiling  mouth, 
and  a  winning  and  tender  expression  of  countenance ;  her  eyes 
were  full  of  vivacity,  and  soft  and  clear.  She  was  a  thorough 
woman  in  all  her  tastes,  in  her  ambition,  and  even  with 
regard  to  her  defects.  She  was  very  agreeable  and  had  very 
good  natural  abilities,  though  she  was  not  at  all  learned,  and 
the  only  book  found  in  her  library  was  her  prayer-book. 
Without  exactly  occupying  herself  with  politics,  she  had 
some  penetration,  and  when  her  heart  prompted  her,  her 
mind  readily  seized  upon  some  things. 

One  day  (March,  1597)  after  dinner,  the  King  went  to 
visit  his  sister,  Madame  Catherine,  who  was  ill.  Madame 
liad  remained  a  Protestant,  and  in  order  to  relieve  her  weari- 
ness, therefore,  a  psalm  was  chaunted  to  the  accompaniment 


i8o  GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES 

of  the  lute,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Calvinists.  The 
King,  without  reflecting,  began  to  sing  psalms  with  the  others, 
but  Gabrielle,  who  was  sitting  next  to  him,  immediately  per- 
ceived how  much  mischief  might  be  manufactured  out  of  this 
imprudence  by  any  malignant  person,  and  hastily  placed  her 
hand  over  his  mouth,  entreating  him  not  to  sing  any  longer, 
to  which  solicitation  he  directly  yielded. 

In  spite  of  all  the  pains  she  took  to  conciliate  the  people  of 
Paris,  she  found  great  difficulty  in  the  task,  and  when,  in  the 
height  of  festivity  of  Mid-Lent,  it  suddenly  became  known 
that  Amiens  was  surprised  by  the  Spaniards,  great  was 
the  public  indignation.  Henry  IV.,  turning  towards  the 
Marquise,  who  was  crying,  said  to  her:  "  My  beloved  mis- 
tress, we  must  lay  down  our  arms  here  awhile,  and  just 
mount  our  horses  and  wage  another  war,"  and  he  hurried 
away  to  repair  by  resolution  and  courage  the  slight  check 
which  he  had  sustained.  It  should  be  observed  that  Gabrielle 
quitted  Paris  in  her  litter  an  hour  before  him,  as  she  did  not 
feel  safe  the  moment  the  King  had  left  the  city,  for  she  was 
accused  of  having  turned  the  King's  attention  from  business, 
and  of  having  lulled  him  in  pleasure:  the  same  sentiments 
were  entertained  towards  her  in  Paris  after  the  taking  of 
Amiens,  as  those  which  were  created  by  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour after  Rosbach. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1599,  Gabrielle  was  appar- 
ently near  being  raised  to  the  dignity  of  Queen ;  for  she  was 
again  on  the  point  of  becoming  a  mother.  From  the  moment 
her  hopes  of  advancement  began  to  Increase,  she  grew  partic- 
ularly courteous  and  officious  in  attention  to  all,  so  much  so, 


GABRIELLE    D'ESTREES  l8i 

indeed,  that  those  who  were  determined  not  to  like  her  could 
not  dislike  her.  "  It  is  really  astonishing,"  confesses  the  satir- 
ical D'Aubigne  himself,  "  how  this  woman,  whose  beauty 
had  no  tincture  of  earth  in  its  character,  has  been  able  to  live 
more  like  a  queen  than  a  mistress  for  so  many  years  with 
so  few  enemies."  It  was  one  of  Gabrielle's  extraordinary 
charms,  as  well  as  really  one  of  her  arts,  to  possess  the  power 
of  investing  this  equivocal  and  unblushing  mode  of  life  with 
a  kind  of  dignity,  nay,  almost  with  an  air  of  decency. 

The  rest  of  Gabrielle's  history  is  well  known.  She  left 
the  King  at  Fontainebleau  to  go  to  Paris,  in  order  to  per- 
form her  devotions  during  Holy  Week ;  and  proceeded  to  the 
house  of  an  Italian  financier,  Zamet,  who  lived  near  the 
Bastille.  On  Holy  Thursday,  after  dinner,  she  went  to  hear 
the  musical  service  of  the  Tenebrae,  at  the  Petit-Sainte  An- 
toine.  She  felt  herself  suddenly  indisposed  before  the  service 
was  over,  and  returned  to  Zamet's;  as  her  illness  increased, 
she  was  anxious  at  once  to  leave  the  house,  and  to  be  taken 
to  the  residence  of  her  aunt,  Madame  de  Sourdis,  near  the 
Louvre.  She  was  alternately  seized  with  convulsions  and 
with  symptoms  of  apoplexy,  which  in  a  few  hours  quite  al- 
tered her  appearance.  They  announced  her  death,  indeed, 
before  she  breathed  her  last:  she  expired  during  the  Friday 
night,  on  the  9th  or  loth  of  April,  1599. 


ISABELLA     OF     AUSTRIA 

(1566 — 1633) 
CHARLES    LOUIS    DE    SEVELINGES 

ISABELLA  CLARA  EUGENIA  of  Austria,  daughter 
of  Philip  II.  of  Spain  and  Elizabeth  of  France,  was 
born  in  1566.  If  ever  a  princess  seemed  destined  to  ascend 
the  throne  of  France,  assuredly  it  was  the  subject  of  this 
sketch,  yet  she  never  succeeded  in  reaching  it.  She  was  only 
eighteen  years  old  when  her  father,  the  King,  bending  his 
religious  scruples  before  politics,  sent  a  proposal  to  the  King 
of  Navarre  (afterwards  Henry  II.),  to  repudiate  Marguerite 
de  Valois  in  order  to  marry  the  young  Infanta  (1584). 
Mornay  refused  in  Henri's  name.  "  Do  you  know  what  you 
are  doing?  "  he  said  to  the  Spanish  envoys;  "  we  are  all  ready 
for  business."  Words  that  revealed  only  too  clearly  in  what 
spirit  the  proposition  was  made,  and  the  need  Spain  had  of 
a  pretext  to  interfere  in  the  League.  The  emissaries  of  Philip 
IL  lost  no  time  in  taking  off  the  masque.  At  the  meetings 
in  Soissons,  they  insinuated  that,  the  Bourbons  being  excluded 
as  heretics,  the  Salic  law  was  also  annulled,  and  that  the 
throne  belonged  by  right  to  the  Infanta  Isabella  as  the  niece 
and  nearest  heir  of  Henry  III.  The  Due  de  Mayenne, 
whose  dearest  hopes  were  thwarted  by  that  declaration, 
replied  sharply  to  Mendoza:     "  Do  you  mistake  the  French 

182 


ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA, 


ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA  183 

for  unfortunate  Indians?  You  will  never  force  them  to  sub- 
mit to  the  yoke  of  a  stranger;  that  would  be  too  bitter  a 
pill/*  The  Seize  proved  that  their  heart  was  no  longer 
French;  for  a  letter  from  this  faction  to  Philip  II.,  dated 
September  20,  1591,  begged  him  to  reign  over  France, 
either  in  his  own  name,  or  in  that  of  his  daughter,  the 
Infanta. 

The  Spanish  ministers  now  hastened  to  declare  that  if  the 
Infanta  was  recognised  as  Queen  by  right  of  birth,  a  husband 
should  be  chosen  for  her  among  the  nobles  of  the  kingdom. 
Without  saying  anything  more  precise,  the  Cabinet  of  Madrid 
flattered  itself  that  it  would  excite  many  ambitions.  Three 
pretenders  now  came  upon  the  scene :  the  Due  de  Nemours, 
half-brother  of  the  Due  de  Mayenne;  the  Due  de  Guise, 
brother  of  him  who  had  perished  at  Blols;  and  the  young 
Cardinal  de  Bourbon,  nephew  of  him  whom  the  League  had 
recognised  for  a  short  time  as  King  under  the  name  of 
Charles  X. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  the  Parliament  of 
Paris,  so  long  severed  by  factions,  seemed  to  recover  suddenly 
all  Its  independence  and  energy.  It  issued  that  celebrated 
decree  (June  28,  1593),  that  declared  the  Salic  law  a 
fundamental  law  of  the  monarchy  and  prohibited  any  treaty 
that  would  bring  a  foreign  house  upon  the  throne  of  our 
kings.  Edward  IVIole,  attorney-general,  said  to  the  Due  de 
Mayenne's  face:  "No  Infanta,  nor  Infanta's  husband!  I 
am  a  true  Frenchman;  I  will  lose  my  life  before  that  shall 
happen." 

But  soon  the  ministers  of  Philip  II.  returned  to  the  matter. 


1 84  ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA 

Thinking  to  tempt  with  more  franchise,  they  designated  the 
Due  de  Guise  for  Isabella's  husband  and  demanded  Brittany 
en  souverainete  as  the  Infanta's  dowry,  stipulating  that,  if  the 
Duke  died  without  sons,  his  widow  might  marry  any  French 
nobleman  of  her  choice.  For  several  days  the  Due  de  Guise 
held  a  royal  court.  This  threatrical  triumph  lasted  a  short 
time:  Mayenne,  alarmed  at  being  a  subject  of  his  own 
nephew,  did  everything  he  could  to  break  up  that  fatal  alli- 
ance. At  first  he  thought  he  had  found  certain  means  in  the 
exorbitant  demands  he  addressed  to  the  Spanish  ministers;  he 
exacted,  for  example,  that  Isabella  should  not  be  proclaimed 
Queen  of  France  until  after  her  marriage,  and  on  a  date 
fixed  by  himself ;  that  if  she  died  without  children,  the  Crown 
should  devolve  by  right  upon  the  eldest  of  the  Guises;  and 
finally  that  they  should  give  him,  the  Due  de  Guise,  sov- 
ereignty of  Champagne  and  Bourgogne.  To  his  great  aston- 
ishment, the  Court  of  Madrid  consented  to  everything. 

The  Infanta  was  about  to  arrive;  Mayenne  resorted  to  a 
ruse.  He  presented  himself  before  the  League  and  told  them 
solemnly  to  recognise  Isabella;  but  immediately  one  of  his 
confederates  observed  that  before  proclaiming  the  new  Queen, 
an  army  must  be  created  for  her  to  oppose  that  of  Henry  IV. 
This  remark  was  unanimously  approved.  The  States  of  the 
League  assembled  in  the  Louvre  in  the  greatest  pomp:  the 
ministers  of  Philip  II.  were  invited  to  the  meeting  (July  4, 
i593)»  They  were  entreated  in  the  most  lofty  terms  to  thank 
their  sovereign  for  all  he  had  undertaken  in  the  interests  of 
the  League;  but  charged  them,  at  the  same  time,  to  declare 
to  him  that  the  situation  of  affairs  would  not  permit  them 


ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA  185 

to  dream  of  the  inauguration  of  his  daughter,  the  Princess. 
The  Spanish  ambassadors  replied,  with  a  feigned  indifference, 
that  their  sovereign  had  never  had  anything  in  view  but  the 
welfare  of  France,  and  that  the  only  regret  he  would  expe- 
rience would  be  that  of  not  having  assured  this  permanently. 
Thus  many  years  of  effort  and  political  combinations  ended 
in  a  scene  of  comedy.  This  ridiculous  affair  did  not  escape 
the  authors  of  the  famous  Satire  Menippee.  In  the  caricature 
of  the  Parliament  of  Paris  the  portrait  of  the  League's 
Betrothed,  that  is  to  say  the  Infanta  herself,  was  suspended 
over  the  head  of  the  President.  Above  the  portrait,  the 
following  lines,  containing  a  double  epigram,  were  written: 

"  Pourtant  si  je  suis  brunette, 
Amy,  n'en  prenez  emoy; 
Car  autant  aimer  souhaitte 
Qu'une  plus  blanche  que  moy." 

The  swarthy  complexion  of  the  Princess  and  her  age, 
which,  however,  was  only  twenty-eight  or  thirty,  were  never 
forgotten  in  the  satires  or  discourses  of  which  she  was  the 
subject.  They  never  spared  her  in  their  raillery ;  they  went 
so  far  as  to  spread,  in  not  at  all  veiled  terms,  the  report  that 
the  Infanta  was  loved  by  her  father  with  a  love  that  was  not 
paternal.  It  is  certain  that  Philip  II.  never  ceased  showing 
her  such  affection  and  confidence  that  this  Prince,  who 
delighted  in  being  mysterious,  initiated  his  daughter  into  the 
most  intimate  secrets  of  his  government.  "  She  was,"  says 
Brantome,  "  a  Princess  of  an  agreeable  mind,  who  attended 
to  all  her  father's  business  affairs  and  was  often  very  much 
exhausted  by  it:  he  also  cherished  her  dearly." 


1 86  ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA 

On  his  deathbed  this  monarch  called  Isabella  the  "  mirror 
and  the  light  of  his  eyes."  Nevertheless,  sacrificing  his 
pleasure  for  his  ambition,  we  see  him  constantly  occupied  in 
trying  to  send  his  daughter  away  from  his  side.  As  it  was 
the  destiny  of  the  Princess  to  be  merely  a  political  tool  in  the 
hands  of  her  father,  as  soon  as  Philip  II.  lost  the  hope  of 
placing  her  on  the  throne  of  France,  he  tried  to  use  her  as 
an  instrument  for  the  submission  of  Holland,  which  he 
despaired  of  reducing  by  force.  For  two  years  he  had  given 
the  government  of  the  Belgian  provinces  to  the  Cardinal 
Archduke  Albert.  He  obtained  a  dispensation  for  him  to 
marry  the  Infanta,  who  received  the  sovereignty  of  the  Low 
Countries  and  Franche-Comte  (1597).  Philip  thought  he 
would  pacify  the  insurgents  by  this  means,  who  would  no 
longer  object  to  the  Spanish  government;  but  his  hopes  were 
vain  and  the  war  continued  as  furiously  as  ever.  Isabella 
followed  her  husband  to  the  war.  Money  was  lacking 
for  the  payment  of  the  troops,  and  they  revolted. 
The  Infanta  rode  through  the  lines  and  offered  them  her 
diamonds  to  satisfy  them.  She  was  present  at  the  famous 
siege  of  Ostende;  despairing  of  the  long  resistance  of  that 
town,  it  is  said  that  she  made  a  vow  not  to  change  her  linen 
until  she  was  mistress  of  that  place.  It  is  not  known  at  what 
date  the  Infanta  made  this  singular  vow;  but  as  the  siege 
lasted  three  years,  three  months,  and  three  days,  it  is  not 
astonishing  that  the  linen  worn  by  the  Princess  should  have 
acquired  that  fawn  colour  which  is  still  called  by  her  name, 
**couleur  Isabelle." 

The  Archduke  Albert   died   in    1621;   Philip   IV.,   who 


ISABELLA  OF  AUSTRIA  187 

ascended  the  throne  In  the  same  year,  deprived  his  aunt  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  Low  Countries  and  only  left  her  the  title 
of  governor.  Although  she  took  the  veil,  she  did  not  relax 
her  firm  hold  upon  the  reins  of  the  administration.  She 
organised  a  powerful  army  to  resist  the  Prince  of  Orange 
(Frederick  Henry),  who,  by  the  seizure  of  BoIs-le-Duc,  had 
thrown  consternation  Into  Brabant.  She  was  on  the  point 
of  concluding  a  long  truce  with  him,  when  Cardinal  Riche- 
lieu, who  would  never  allow  the  House  of  Austria  time  to 
breathe,  broke  off  the  negotiations  (1629). 

Although  the  Infanta  was  respected  and  even  loved  by 
the  people  she  governed,  they  formed  (by  the  Intrigues  of 
Richelieu,  It  is  said),  a  great  conspiracy  to  turn  the  Roman 
Catholic  Low  Countries  Into  an  Independent  republic.  The 
conspirators  Imagined  that  they  could  put  to  sleep  the  vigi- 
lance of  a  princess  of  sixty-six  years,  whom  they  thought  was 
absorbed  in  religious  devotions.  Their  attempt  was  frus- 
trated: Isabella  penetrated  their  plots  and  baffled  them  by 
means  of  her  prudence  and  firmness.  In  the  same  year 
(1632),  she  received  in  Brussels  Queen  Marie  de'  Medici, 
who  was  obliged  to  flee  from  France.  Isabella  offered  media- 
tion with  Louis  XIIL,  who  refused.  She  died  a  few  months 
later  In  1633.  The  virtues  of  this  Princess  have  been  praised 
even  by  Protestant  writers. 


CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN 

(1626—1689) 
JOHN   DORAN 

WHEN  Christina  of  Sweden,  after  she  had  resigned 
the  throne,  addressed  herself  to  the  task  of  writing  her 
own  life,  she  commenced  her  autobiography  with  the  remark 
that,  except  Charles  XL,  then  reigning,  she  was  the  only  liv- 
ing being  who  had  any  right  to  the  Swedish  Crown.  The 
remark  was  characteristic  of  the  author.  Despite  her  abdica- 
tion, she  never  made  entire  surrender  of  her  right. 

Her  birth,  at  Abo,  on  December  8,  1626,  put  the 
astrologers  to  shame.  They  had  foretold  that  a  son  would 
be  born  to  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  that  matters 
would  go  ill  with  mother  and  child.  The  prophecy  failed  in 
every  point.  "  She  will  be  a  clever  girl,"  said  Gustavus,  "  for 
she  has  already  deceived  every  one  of  us." 

Christina  was  but  a  child  when,  by  the  death  of  the  great 
Gustavus,  she  became  Queen  (or  King,  for  the  old  Swedes, 
like  the  Hungarians,  applied  the  latter  title  to  female 
sovereigns),  of  Sweden.  She  remembered  little  more  of  her 
accession  than  the  delight  she  experienced  at  seeing  so  many 
grand  people  kissing  her  hand.  The  peasants,  too,  had  their 
share  in  consenting  to  receive  her  as  Queen.  The  little  lady 
was  introduced  to  a  body  of  them,  and  their  chief,  Lars 

188 


CHRISTINA,   QUEEN  OK  SWEDEN. 


CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN  189 

Larsson,  after  examining  her  closely — never  having  seen  her 
before — exclaimed :  "  Yes,  I  recognise  the  nose,  eyes,  and 
forehead  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.    Let  her  be  Queen" 

In  the  fragment  of  her  autobiography,  she  confesses  that 
she  soon  forgot  her  father;  and  she  avow^s  that  the  long  and 
weary  speeches  of  congratulation  to  which  she  was  obliged 
to  listen   gave  her  more  annoyance  than  her  father's  death. 

The  Queen  Dowager  mourned  for  her  lost  husband  in  a 
very  characteristic  fashion.  She  shut  herself  within  her 
apartment,  which  was  hung,  ceiled,  and  carpeted  with  black. 
The  light  of  day  was  excluded;  and  beneath  the  lamps  sus- 
pended from  the  roof,  the  disconsolate  widow  lay,  laughing 
till  her  sides  ached,  at  the  jests  of  the  buffoons  and  the  droll- 
eries of  the  dwarfs,  by  whom  the  apartment  was  crowded. 

Educated  by  men,  and  under  the  guardianship  of  men  like 
Oxenstierna  and  his  colleagues,  Christina  imbibed  a  hatred 
of  all  that  was  womanly.  She  swore  like  a  dragoon.  She 
was  passionate,  proud,  revengeful;  but  her  application  to 
study  was  wonderful,  and  the  success  more  wonderful  still, 
even  when  an  application  of  twelve  hours  a  day  is  taken  into 
account.  The  difficulty  would  be  to  say  what  she  did  not 
know ;  and  of  half  of  what  she  had  acquired,  she  was  herself 
the  teacher. 

The  affairs  of  her  own  kingdom  were  indeed  admirably 
conducted  during  her  minority  by  Oxenstierna,  eminent  as 
both  warrior  and  statesman.  With  such  success  was  his 
policy  carried  out  that,  in  1648,  she  may  be  said  to  have 
almost  dictated  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  which  commenced 
a  new  era  and  a  new  system  in  Europe. 


I90  CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN 

The  Senate  nobly  carried  out  her  father's  views  with 
respect  to  her  education.  Noble  ladies,  sage  men,  skilful 
instructors  surrounded  her.  She  learned  the  dead  languages 
as  easily  as  the  living — and  by  the  same  simple  means — not 
merely  by  grammar  and  dictionary,  but  colloquially. 

After  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  had  secured,  for  a  while. 
the  tranquillity  of  Sweden,  Christina  was  crowned,  under 
circumstances  of  more  than  ordinary  rejoicing,  in  1650.  She 
then  named  as  her  successor  Charles  Gustavus,  son  of  the 
Pfalzgraf  John  Casimir  and  Catherine,  sister  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus. 

Among  the  greatest  glories  of  this  celebrated  Queen  was 
the  founding  of  the  University  of  Abo,  in  Finland.  She 
invited,  and  that  at  a  great  cost,  to  her  aid,  as  well  as  for  her 
own  intellectual  entertainment,  great  scholars  from  all  coun- 
tries ;  Grotius  and  Descartes,  Salmasius,  Vossius,  Nicholas 
Heinsius,  Comingius,  Freinshemius,  and  others  not  less  cele- 
brated, gave  splendour  and  dignity  to  a  Court  where  the 
Muses  were  as  much  in  favour  as  deeds  of  arms. 

Her  liberality,  however,  extended  to  extravagance,  and 
she  was  prodigal  in  laying  out  money,  even  on  worthless 
objects.  The  nation  bore  silently  with  the  faults  of  the 
daughter  of  Gustavus.  The  people  became  more  discon- 
tented and  less  reserved  in  manifesting  their  displeasure,  when 
they  observed  the  closeness  of  their  intercourse  with  Roman- 
ists— particularly  with  the  French  doctor  Bourdelot  and  the 
Spanish  ambassador  Pimentelll.  Both  were  deeply  in  her 
confidence;  but  while  she  trusted  Bourdelot  she  was  first 
led,  then  commanded,  by  the  Spaniard.     Her  close  intimacy 


CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN  191 

with  the  latter  was  complete,  and  it  excited  against  her  the 
indignation,  not  unmingled  by  compassion,  of  those  who  loved 
the  daughter  of  Gustavus,  but  who  saw  the  abyss  into  which 
she  was  descending.  She  resolutely  refused  to  contract  any 
matrimonial  engagement,  although  several  princely  suitors 
offered  themselves  to  woo  a  lady  who  would  not  be  won — in 
that  fashion. 

There  were  many  men  at  her  Court,  scholars,  philosophers, 
poets,  artists,  and  others,  whose  presence  would  have  added 
glory  to  any  throne;  but  with  them  there  were  the  two 
already  mentioned.  Doctor  Michon,  who  assumed  the  name 
of  his  more  celebrated  uncle,  Bourdelot,  and  Pimentelli,  the 
Spanish  ambassador ;  and  these  men,  the  first  openly  licentious 
and  the  second  darkly  designing,  caused  her  to  forfeit  the 
good  opinion  of  her  subjects,  and  brought  her  to  the  point  at 
which  she  saw,  or  affected  to  see,  that  her  safest  course  was 
to  abdicate,  whether  she  regarded  her  pleasures  or  her  duty. 
She  fancied  that  she  might  fulfil  both  all  the  easier  by  such 
a  course. 

At  length  the  loth  of  June,  1654,  arrived.  As  if  to  show 
her  impatience  for  the  coming  of  that  day,  the  Queen 
appeared  before  the  Senate  at  seven  o*clock  In  the  morning. 
In  the  presence  of  all  assembled,  she  signed  the  deed  of  resig- 
nation, after  It  had  been  read  aloud;  subsequent  to  which, 
the  deed  securing  to  her  her  revenue  and  landed  property 
was  also  read  and  signed. 

Christina  then  arose.  The  crown  was  on  her  brow.  The 
royal  mantle  hung  from  her  shoulders.  The  sceptre  was  still 
grasped  by  one  hand;  In  the  other  she  held  the  symbolic 


192  CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN 

orb.  With  a  crowd  of  brilliant  officials  around  her,  and  two 
officers  at  her  side  bearing  the  Sword  of  State  and  the  Golden 
Key,  Christina  entered  the  great  hall  of  the  palace.  It  was 
completely  filled  by  glittering  nobles  and  ladies,  in  whose 
presence  Christina  took  her  seat  upon  a  solid  silver  throne. 
Deputations  from  different  States  of  the  realm  were  also 
among  the  spectators.  The  acts  signed  in  the  Senate  were 
then  read  aloud,  and  the  hereditary  Prince,  whose  chair  was 
a  little  in  the  rear  of  the  massive  low  throne  occupied  by  the 
Queen,  placed  the  acts  in  her  hands.  She  let  them  lie  in  her 
lap  for  a  moment.  Then,  feeling  that  all  was  over,  or  should 
be  over,  she  stood  erect,  and  made  a  sign  with  her  hand  to 
Count  Brahe  to  approach  and  take  the  crown  from  off  her 
head.  The  great  official  drew  back,  resolved  not  to  perform 
such  solemn  service.  Again  the  sign  was  made,  but  the 
Count  only  turned  aside  to  conceal  his  emotion.  Christina 
then  raised  her  hands,  lifted  the  crown  from  her  brow,  and 
held  It  in  her  extended  hands,  towards  the  Count,  who  now 
approached  and  received  it,  kneeling.  She  then  stripped  her- 
self of  all  her  remaining  adornments,  which  were  carried  by 
officers  present,  and  deposited  upon  a  table  near  the  throne. 
Christina  was  left  standing  in  a  simple  dress  of  white  taffeta. 
She  advanced  a  few  steps,  and  spoke  during  a  full  half-hour 
on  the  past  struggles  and  glory  of  Sweden,  and  on  its  pros- 
pects. She  spoke  eloquently,  gracefully,  touchingly.  The 
whole  assembly  was  drowned  in  tears  and  admiration  at 
beholding  such  a  sight,  and  hearing  such  sentiments — a 
Queen  in  the  prime  of  life  voluntarily  surrendering  power, 
and  testifying  by  her  speech  her  worthiness  to  retain  it. 


CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN  i93 

Sundry  complimentary  addresses  followed  from  members 
of  the  Senate,  nobles,  and  from  Charles  Gustavus,  who  even 
went  so  far  as  to  persuade  her  to  resume  the  symbols  of 
royalty  which  she  had  just  laid  down.  Christina  smiled, 
shook  her  head,  and  all  present,  having  kissed  her  hand,  she 
was  conducted  by  Charles  Gustavus  to  her  private  apart- 
ments. There  was  a  pretty  struggle  on  the  occasion,  but 
Charles,  with  gentle  restraint,  led  her  on  his  right,  and 
leaving  her  at  the  door  of  her  chamber,  proceeded  to  the 
Cathredal,  where  he  was  crowned. 

In  the  evening,  although  the  rain  descended  in  torrents, 
she  announced  her  intention  of  quitting  Upsal.  Her  friends 
remonstrated  with  her.  "  I  cannot  rest  here,"  said  Christina, 
"  where  I  was  so  lately  a  crowned  sovereign."  She  accord- 
ingly went;  and  on  her  arrival  at  Stockholm  declared  her 
intention  of  repairing  to  Spa,  for  the  purpose  of  drinking  the 
waters,  with  a  view  of  invigorating  her  shattered  health. 
She  left  Sweden  accordingly,  after  taking  hasty  leave  of  hei 
mother,  the  Queen  Dowager,  at  Nikoping.  Escorts  by  land 
and  convoy  by  sea  were  placed  at  her  disposal,  but  she  escaped 
from,  rather  than  refused  all,  and  Christina  began  her  career 
of  errant-lady. 

Chenut  reports  that  when  Christina  had  arrived  at  the 
little  rivulet  which  then  divided  Sweden  from  territory 
belonging  to  Denmark,  she  descended  from  her  carriage  and 
jumped  across  the  boundary.  On  alighting  on  the  other  side, 
she  exclaimed:  "  At  length!  here  I  am,  at  liberty,  and  out 
of  Sweden;  may  I  never  return  thither!" 

In  male  attire  and  under  the  name  of  "  the  son  of  the 


194  CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN 

Count  of  Dolna,"  Christina  journeyed  onward.  Her 
progress  excited  great  curiosity,  although  she  herself  fancied 
that  it  was  unobserved.  It  may  be  said  rather,  that  she 
travelled  in  the  guise  of  a  foreign  knight,  for  she  traversed 
Denmark  habited  as  a  cavalier,  with  a  red  scarf,  accord- 
ing to  the  Spanish  fashion.  In  this  way  she  rode  into 
Hamburg. 

Careless  of  what  the  public  thought  of  her  proceedings,  and 
treating  with  disregard  the  proceedings  of  others,  under- 
taken to  do  her  honour  and  show  her  respect,  Christina  rode 
on  in  impudent  independence.  She  passed  through  town  after 
town,  and  seemed  scarcely  to  see,  and  often,  if  compelled  to 
see,  ready  to  evince  her  contempt  for,  the  orations  got  up  out 
of  delicate  feeling,  as  if  she  were  still  a  great  sovereign,  and 
not  a  clever  lady. 

While  Christina  was  politically  busy  at  this  time  in  endeav- 
ouring to  reconcile  France  and  Spain,  she  was  still  more 
occupied  with  a  more  important  and  personal  affair — her 
conversion. 

She  evaded  searching  questions  addressed  to  her  from 
Sweden ;  but  continued  her  dissipated  life — only  withdrawing 
for  a  brief  time  from  gaiety,  on  hearing  of  the  deaths  of  her 
mother  and  Oxenstierna,  the  great  statesman.  Her  eagerness 
to  visit  Rome  became  now  irresistible,  and  she  announced  her 
wishes  to  the  Pontiff,  Alexander  VII.,  whom  she  privately 
ridiculed  for  entertaining  an  opinion  that  he,  the  vainest  and 
weakest  of  men,  was  the  author  of  her  conversion.  The 
Holy  Father  expressed  the  joy  he  should  feel  at  receiving 
such  a  visitor,  but  intimated  that  her  welcome  would  depend 


CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN  I95 

upon  her  first  making  a  public  confession  of  the  Romish 
faith.  This  event  which  took  place  on  the  3d  of  November, 
1655,  was  accompanied  by  circumstances  of  great  pomp  and 
solemnity. 

Some  contemporary  writers  described  the  morals  of  the 
ex-Queen  as  not  being  according  to  her  Christian  profession, 
and  licentiousness  was  laid  to  her  charge,  without  being  more 
satisfactorily  answered  than  by  complaint  of  the  publication. 
This,  however,  did  not  affect  the  splendour  and  gaiety  of 
her  Court,  or  render  her  saloons  less  crowded  by  poets  who 
be-rhymed  her,  artists  who  limned  her,  philosophers  who 
received  instruction  from  her,  and  scholars,  like  Kircher,  who 
were  brimful  and  overpouring,  not  only  with  valuable 
knowledge,  but  with  matters  that  had  been  mastered  by  the 
painful  application  of  years,  and  which  were  not  worth  the 
trouble  even  of  remembering. 

Towards  the  close  of  1688,  she  received  an  anonymous 
letter  which  announced  that  her  death  was  at  hand,  that  she 
would  do  well  to  set  her  house  In  order,  that  she  could  not 
make  a  better  commencement  than  by  condemning  to  destruc- 
tion the  Indecent  paintings  and  statues  with  which  her  man- 
sion was  crowded.  The  sexagenarian  lady,  who  had  a  taste 
for  such  furniture,  smiled,  and  put  the  anonymous  letter  in 
the  fire. 

Soon  after,  she  suddenly  became  dangerously  ill;  and 
almost  as  suddenly  was  convalescent.  Her  recovery  fired 
Rome  with  a  wild  delight;  but  the  joy  was  again  suddenly 
turned  Into  mourning.  On  the  19th  of  April,  she  had  ful- 
filled all  the  offices  required  by  the  Church,  and  was  lying 


196  CHRISTINA,  QUEEN  OF  SWEDEN 

on  her  bed,  surrounded  by  her  little  Court  and  a  numerous 
company  of  priests.  As  noon  commenced  striking,  she  turned 
on  her  right  side,  placed  her  left  hand  under  her  neck,  and 
as  the  iron  tongue  told  the  last  of  the  twelve,  the  daughter 
of  the  great  Gustavus,  the  murderess  of  Monaldeschi,  was 
calmly  sleeping  the  sleep  of  death. 


MRS.  FITZHERBERT 

(1756—1837) 
JOHN   FYVIE 

THE  Morning  Herald  of  the  27th  of  July,  1784,  pre- 
sented  its   readers  with  the  following  by  no  means 
apparently  important  piece  of  Society  intelligence; 

"A  new  constellation  has  lately  made  an  appearance  in  the 
fashionable  hemisphere  that  engages  the  attention  of  those  whose 
hearts  are  susceptible  to  the  power  of  beauty.  The  widow  of  the 
late  Mr.  F — h — t  has  in  her  train  half  our  young  Nobility;  as  the 
lady  has  not,  as  yet,  discovered  a  partiality  for  any  of  her  admirers, 
they  are  all  animated  with  hopes  of  success." 

Little  did  the  writer  of  this  paragraph,  or  any  of  his 
readers,  or  even  the  new  beauty  herself,  imagine  what  a 
strange  destiny  was  reserved  for  her. 

Although  but  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  the  lady  had  been 
twice  a  widow.  She  was  born  in  July,  1756,  and  was  the 
youngest  daughter  of  Walter  Smythe,  Esq.,  of  Bramb ridge, 
in  Hampshire,  who  was  the  second  son  of  Sir  John  Smythe, 
Bart.,  of  Eshe  Hall,  Co.  Durham,  and  Acton  Burnell  Park, 
in  Shropshire.  Of  her  earlier  days  next  to  nothing  is  known. 
The  only  story  on  record  relating  to  her  childhood  appears 
to  be  that,  being  taken  by  her  parents  to  see  Louis  XV.  eat 
his  solitary  dinner  at  Versailles,  and  seeing  the  King  of 

197 


198  MRS.  FITZHERBERT 

France  pull  a  chicken  to  pieces  with  his  fingers,  the  novelty 
of  the  exhibition  struck  her  so  forcibly,  that,  regardless  of 
royal  etiquette,  she  burst  into  an  uncontrollable  fit  of 
laughter.  Happily,  the  royal  attention,  thus  directed  to  her, 
had  no  worse  consequences  than  the  offer  of  a  dish  of  sugar 
plums,  which  the  King  sent  her  by  one  of  his  courtiers.  In 
1775,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  she  was  married  to  Edward 
Weld,  Esq.,  of  Lul worth  Castle,  Dorsetshire.  This  gentle- 
man died  before  the  end  of  the  same  year.  In  1778,  she  was 
again  married,  this  time  to  Thomas  Fitzherbert,  Esq.,  of 
Swynnerton,  Staffordshire,  who,  three  years  later,  left  her 
again  a  widow,  with  a  jointure  of  £2,000  a  year.  She  then 
took  up  her  residence  in  a  house  on  Richmond  Hill,  where 
she  attracted,  as  the  notice  of  the  Morning  Herald  testifies, 
no  small  degree  of  general  admiration. 

Amongst  the  most  ardent  of  her  admirers  was  George, 
Prince  of  Wales,  then  a  handsome  and  fascinating,  but 
already  dissipated  young  man  of  twenty-two,  six  years  the 
lady's  junior.  For  some  time  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  seems  to  have 
successfully  repelled  the  Prince's  advances ;  but,  says  her  rela- 
tive Lord  Stourton,  she  was  at  length  subjected  to  a  species 
of  attack  so  unprecedented  and  alarming  that  her  resolution 
was  shaken,  and  she  was  induced  to  take  the  first  step  which 
ultimately  led  to  that  union  which  the  Prince  so  ardently 
desired,  and  for  the  sake  of  which  he  appeared  ready  to  run 
any  conceivable  risk.    One  day.  Lord  Stourton  informs  us : 

"Kcit,  the  surgeon,  Lord  Onslow,  Lord  Southampton,  and  Mr. 
Edward  Bouveric  arrived  at  her  house  in  the  utmost  consternation 
informing  her  that  the  life  of  the  Prince  was  in  imminent  danger — 


MRS     FITZHERBKRT 


MRS.  FITZHERBERT  199 

that  he  had  stabbed  himself — and  that  only  her  presence  would 
save  him.  She  resisted  all  their  importunities,  saying  that  nothing 
should  induce  her  to  enter  Carlton  House.  She  was  afterwards 
brought  to  share  in  the  alarm,  but  still,  fearful  of  some  stratagem 
derogatory  to  her  reputation,  insisted  upon  some  lady  of  high 
character  accompanying  her  as  an  indispensable  condition.  The 
Duchess  of  Devonshire  was  selected.  The  four  drove  from  Park 
Street  to  Devonshire  House,  and  took  her  along  with  them.  She 
found  the  Prince  pale  and  covered  with  blood.  The  sight  so 
overpowered  her  faculties  that  she  was  deprived  almost  of  all 
consciousness.  The  Prince  told  her  that  nothing  would  induce  him 
to  live  unless  she  promised  to  become  his  wife,  and  permitted  him 
to  put  a  ring  round  her  finger.  I  believe  a  ring  from  the  hand  of 
the  Duchess  of  Devonshire  was  used  upon  the  occasion,  and  not  one 
of  his  own.  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  being  asked  by  me  whether  she 
did  not  believe  that  some  trick  had  been  practised,  and  that  it  was 
not  really  the  blood  of  His  Royal  Highness,  answered  in  the  nega- 
tive, and  said  she  had  frequently  seen  the  scar,  and  that  some 
brandy  and  water  was  near  his  bedside  when  she  called  to  him  on 
the  day  he  had  wounded  himself."* 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  extraordinary  scene,  Mrs.  Fitz- 
herbert went  home;  and  next  day,  regretting  what  she  had 
been  persuaded  to  do,  she  sent  a  letter  of  protest  to  Lord 
Southampton  and  left  the  country.  For  a  time  she  travelled 
about  in  France  and  Switzerland,  and  made  a  stay  of  some 
length  in  Holland,  where  she  lived  on  terms  of  intimacy  with 
the  Stadtholder  and  his  family.  It  was  one  of  life's  little 
ironies  that  just  at  the  time  of  her  intimacy  with  this  family 
the  Princess  of  Orange  was  being  negotiated  for  as  a  wife 
for  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  she  was  subjected  to  a  good  deal 
of  questioning  as  to  what  she  knew  of  his  character.  The 
Prince,  meanwhile,  as  we  learn  from  Lord  Holland,  made  no 

*  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  (London,  1856). 


200  MRS.  FITZHERBERT 

secret  of  his  passion  and  his  despair  at  her  leaving  England 
for  the  Continent.  He  went  down  more  than  once  to  St. 
Anne's  to  talk  with  Fox  and  Mrs.  Armitstead  on  the  subject, 
and  this  lady  describes  him  as  crying  by  the  hour,  and  testify- 
ing to  the  sincerity,  or  at  any  rate  the  violence,  of  his  passion 
in  the  most  extravagant  way — ^by  rolling  on  the  floor,  strik- 
ing his  forehead,  tearing  his  hair,  and  swearing  that  he  would 
abandon  the  country,  forego  the  Crown,  sell  his  jewels  and 
plate,  and  scrape  together  a  competence  wherewith  to  fly  with 
the  object  of  his  affections  to  America.  At  the  same  time  he 
despatched  courier  after  courier  with  letters  to  his  inamorata, 
until  she  was  induced  first  to  promise  that  at  least  she  would 
not  marry  any  other  person,  and  then,  after  being  assured  that 
his  father  would  connive  at  their  union,  that  she  would  marry 
him ;  "  on  conditions,"  says  Lord  Stourton,  "  which  satisfied 
her  conscience,  though  she  could  have  no  legal  claim  to  be 
the  wife  of  the  Prince."  She  accordingly  returned  to  Eng- 
land in  December,  1785,  and  on  the  21st  of  that  month  was 
married  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  in  her  own  drawing-room,  by 
a  Protestant  clergyman,  in  the  presence  of  her  uncle,  Harry 
Errington,  and  her  brother,  Jack  Smythe.  The  certificate 
of  this  marriage.  Lord  Stourton  assures  us,  was  in  the  hand- 
writing of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  is  still  preserved; 
although  some  time  afterwards,  at  the  earnest  request  of  the 
parties,  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  cut  off  the  names  of  the  witnesses 
in  order  to  save  them  from  the  possible  penalties  of  the  law. 
In  1788,  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  moved  into  a  house  in  Pall 
Mall  which  had  a  private  entrance  into  the  grounds  of  Carl- 
ton House.     Rumour,  of  course,  was  still  busy;  and  on  the 


MRS.  FITZHERBERT 


20 1 


1 0th  of  October  of  that  year  the  Morning  Post  was  cour- 
ageous enough  to  publish  the  following  inquiry: 

"A  Question. — What  is  the  reason  that  Mrs.  Fitzherbert,  who 
is  a  lady  of  fortune  and  fashion,  never  appears  at  Court?  She  is 
visited  by  some  ladies  of  high  rank — has  been  in  public  with  them — 
and  yet  never  goes  to  the  Drawing  Rooms  at  St.  James's.  The 
question  is  sent  for  publication  by  a  person  who  pays  no  regard  to 
the  idle  reports  of  the  day,  and  wishes  to  have  the  mystery 
cleared  up." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  candid  inquirer  never  received 
any  answer,  and  the  public  was  obliged  to  draw  its  own  con- 
clusions from  the  fact  that,  although  the  lady  in  question 
never  appeared  at  Court,  yet,  wherever  else  the  Prince  of 
Wales  might  happen  to  be,  there  was  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  also. 

On  the  whole,  she  seems  to  have  lived  happily  enough  with 
the  Prince  up  to  the  time  of  his  marriage  with  Caroline  of 
Brunswick  in  1798,  when  she  retired  with  an  annuity  of 
£6,000  a  year.  The  unhappy  marriage  with  the  Princess 
Caroline  was,  according  to  Lord  Holland,  promoted  by  Lady 
Jersey  and  Lady  Harcourt  with  a  view  of  counteracting  the 
influence  of  Mrs.  Fitzherbert.  That  the  Prince  was,  from 
first  to  last,  strongly  adverse  to  it  is  abundantly  clear.  He 
was  always  in  pecuniary  difficulties.  The  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton knew  that  on  one  occasion  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  had  been 
obliged  to  borrow  money  to  pay  for  the  Prince's  post-horses 
to  take  him  to  Newmarket.  He  himself  acknowledged  to 
Lord  Malmesbury,  in  1792,  that  his  debts  then  amounted  to 
£370,000,  and  that  he  had  recently  had  several  executions 
in  his  house.  And  in  Hulsh's  Memoirs  of  George  the  Fourth 
there  is  a  curious  story  of  the  pawning  of  the  State  jewels  in 


202  MRS.  FITZHERBERT 

order  to  save  Mrs.  Fltzherbert  from  being  arrested  for  a 
debt  of  £1,825.  More  money  the  Prince  must  have,  and  he 
consented  to  marry  Caroline  when  he  was  assured  that  by 
so  doing  his  actual  income,  exclusive  of  the  sum  set  apart  for 
the  payment  of  his  debts,  should  be  raised  to  £100,000  a  year. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  his  character  was  sacrificed  to 
his  embarrassments.  Fox's  formal  denial,  eight  years  pre- 
viously, that  any  marriage  ceremony  had  taken  place  with 
Mrs.  Fitzherbert  does  not  appear  to  have  entirely  removed 
all  apprehensions  on  the  subject.  In  spite  of  the  Prince's 
public  marriage  to  Queen  Caroline,  the  belief  in  the  sanctity 
of  his  previous  private  marriage  still  enabled  Mrs.  Fitzherbert 
to  maintain  her  position  in  London  society,  and  to  draw  all 
the  fashionable  world,  including  the  Royal  Dukes,  to  her 
parties.  And  it  is  even  more  strange  that  when,  no  long 
time  after,  the  Prince  desired  to  return  to  her,  several  mem- 
bers of  the  Royal  Family,  male  and  female,  urged  her  to 
agree  to  a  reconciliation.  She  agreed  to  abide  by  the  de- 
cision of  the  Pope  on  the  matter;  and  an  envoy  was  sent  to 
Rome  to  obtain  his  opinion.  Her  marriage  with  the  Prince 
was  held  to  be  perfectly  valid  both  as  a  contract  and  as  a 
sacrament,  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  Catholic  Church;  and 
she  was  advised  that  she  might  return  to  live  with  him  with- 
out blame.  Whereupon  she  gave  a  breakfast  at  her  own 
house  "  to  the  whole  town  of  London  "  to  celebrate  the  event. 
The  ensuing  eight  years  were,  she  always  declared,  the  hap- 
piest of  her  connection  with  the  Prince.  She  used  to  say  that 
they  were  extremely  poor,  but  as  happy  as  crickets ;  and  as  a 
proof  of  their  povery,  she  told  Lord  Stourton  that  once,  on 


MRS.  FITZHERBERT  203 

their  returning  to  Brighton  from  London,  they  mustered 
their  common  means,  and  could  not  raise  £5  between  them. 
Soon  after  George  IV/s  death,  Mrs.  FItzherbert  took 
occasion  when  William  IV.  was  at  Brighton  to  show  him 
the  certificate  of  her  marriage  and  other  papers  relating  to 
her  connection  with  the  late  King.  William  IV.,  says  Lord 
Stourton,  expressed  great  surprise  that  she  had  shown 
so  much  forbearance,  under  the  pressure  of  long  and 
severe  trials,  when  such  documents  were  in  her  posses- 
sion. He  asked  her  what  amends  he  could  make ;  and  offered 
to  create  her  a  Duchess.  On  her  declining  this  honour,  he 
authorised  her  to  wear  widow's  weeds  for  his  Royal  brother, 
and  insisted  that  she  should  always  use  the  Royal  livery.  He 
also  took  an  early  opportunity  to  Introduce  her  to  his  family, 
who  ever  after  treated  her  as  one  of  themselves.  Thomas 
Raikes  says  that  she  maintained  a  very  handsome  establish- 
ment, both  in  Tilney  Street  and  at  Brighton;  that  she  was 
very  hospitable,  and  that  her  handsome  dinners,  services  of 
plate,  and  numerous  train  of  servants  In  the  Royal  livery, 
who  had  all  grown  old  in  her  service,  gave  to  her  house  at 
least  a  selgneurial,  if  not  a  Royal,  appearance.  And  on  the 
Continent  her  treatment  was  similar  to  that  she  received  In 
England.     Writing  from  Paris  In  December,  1833,  she  says: 

"I  have  taken  a  very  quiet  apartment,  and  live  very  retired, 
seeing  occasionally  some  friends.  The  Duke  of  Orleans  came  to 
see  me  the  moment  I  arrived,  with  a  thousand  kind  messages  from 
the  King  and  Queen,  desiring  me  to  go  to  them,  which  I  accord- 
ingly have  done.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  kindness  of  their 
reception  of  me :  they  are  old  acquaintances  of  mine.  .  .  .  They  have 
given  me  a  general  invitation  to  go  there  every  evening  whenever 
I  like  it,  which  suits  me  very  much." 


204  MRS.  FITZHERBERT 

Previous  to  this  Continental  journey  in  1833,  she  had 
determined  with  the  cordial  sanction  of  William  IV,,  to 
destroy  all  papers  relating  to  her  connexion  with  the  late 
King,  excepting  the  marriage  certificate,  and  one  or  two  other 
documents,  which  she  wished  to  preserve  for  the  vindication 
of  her  character.  An  agreement  for  this  purpose  was  drawn 
up.  In  pursuance  of  this  agreement  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
met  the  Earl  of  Albemarle  at  Mrs.  Fitzherbert's  house  in 
Tilney  Streetj  on  the  24th  of  August,  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  the  condemned  papers.  "  Some  idea  of  the  mass 
of  manuscripts  committed  to  the  flames  may  be  formed,"  says 
Lord  Albemarle,  "by  an  expression  of  the  Duke  to  my 
father,  after  several  hours'  burning:  *  I  think,  my  lord,  we 
had  better  hold  our  hand  for  a  while,  or  we  shall  set  the  old 
woman's  chimney  on  fire.' "  The  five  documents  to  be 
preserved  were  made  into  a  packet  and  deposited  at  Coutts's 
Bank,  where,  says  Lord  Albemarle  (writing  in  1877),  t^^y 
now  remain :  **  They  are  declared  to  be  *the  property  of  the 
Earl  of  Albemarle;'  they  are,  however,  not  my  property, 
but  are  held  in  trust  by  my  brother  Edward,  as  my  father's 
executor." 

We  are,  I  think,  justified  in  drawing  the  inference 
that,  had  they  been  the  property  of  George  Thomas,  sixth 
Earl  of  Abemarle,  he  would  have  broken  the  seals,  and  made 
the  public  more  fully  acquainted  with  the  contents  of  the 
packet.  For  what  other  purpose,  indeed,  were  those  papers 
so  carefully  preserved?  On  the  7th  of  December,  1833,  Mrs. 
Fitzherbert  wrote  to  Lord  Stourton,  her  relative  and  co-relig- 
ionist: 


MRS.  FIT2HERBERT 


205 


"  I  know  I  must  have  been  a  great  torment  to  you,  but  I  am 
sure  the  kind  feelings  of  your  heart  will  derive  some  gratification 
in  having  relieved  rae  from  a  state  of  misery  and  anxiety  which  has 
been  the  bane  of  my  life ;  and  I  trust,  whenever  it  shall  please  God 
to  remove  me  from  this  world,  ray  conduct  and  character  (in  your 
hands)   will  not  disgrace  my  family  and  my  friends." 

She  died  at  Brighton  the  29th  of  March,  1837,  at  the  age 
of  eighty-one,  and  was  buried  in  the  old  Catholic  Church 
there,  in  which  will  be  found  a  handsome  monument  erected 
to  her  memory  by  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Dawson  Damer,  to  whom 
as  the  inscription  declares,  "  she  was  more  than  a  parent." 
No  one  who  knew  her  has  ever  spoken  harshly  of  her. 
Charles  Greville's  diary  is  much  fuller  of  blame  than  of 
praise  of  any  of  his  contemporaries,  but  of  Mrs.  Fitzherbert, 
on  hearing  of  her  death,  he  wrote:  "  She  was  not  a  clever 
woman,  but  of  a  very  noble  spirit,  disinterested,  generous, 
honest  and  affectionate,  greatly  beloved  by  her  friends  and 
relations,  popular  in  the  world  and  treated  with  uniform  dis- 
tinction and  respect  by  the  Royal  Family."  And  even  the 
Hon.  Grantley  Berkeley,  whose  four  volumes  of  more  or 
less  unpleasant  Recollections  show  him  to  have  been  almost 
constitutionally  incapable  of  appreciating  any  but  the  lowest 
motives,  is  forced  to  admit  that  she  was  "  so  thoroughly 
amiable  and  good-natured  that  every  one  who  came  within 
the  circle  of  her  influence  felt  inclined  to  shut  his  or  her  eyes 
against  any  cognisance  of  her  true  position." 

"I  remember  well  [he  says]  her  delicately  fair,  yet  commanding 
features,  and  gentle  demeanour.  That  exquisite  complexion  she 
maintained,  almost  unimpaired  by  time,  not  only  long  after  the 
departure  of  youth,  but  up  to  the  arrival  of  old  age;  and  her  man- 
ner, unaffected  by  years,  was  equally  well  preserved." 


HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES 

(1579— 1633) 
LEON    MARLET 

CATHERINE  HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC 
D'ENTRAGUES,  Marquise  de  Verneull,  was  born 
in  1579,  and  died  Feb.  9,  1633.  Henry  IV.  fell  in  love 
with  her  in  August,  1599,  while  visiting  her  father,  the 
Comte  d'Entragues,  at  his  castle  of  Malesherbes.  At  that 
time,  Henry  was  still  deeply  grieving  over  the  death  of 
Gabrielle  d'Estrees,  which  had  happened  two  months  before, 
and  was  vainly  seeking  forgetfulness  in  incessant  hunting. 
Being  fascinated  at  their  first  meeting,  Henry's  mind  was 
filled  only  with  Henriette  thenceforward.  A  true  family  of 
intriguers,  daughter  like  father  and  father  like  daughter — let 
us  also  add:  father  and  daughter  like  the  mother,  Marie 
Touchet,  the  ex-mistress  of  Charles  IX.,  who  indeed  would 
have  played  the  prude  with  a  very  ill  grace, — had  solicited 
the  honour  of  receiving  their  sovereign  with  no  other  inten- 
tion. 

All  that  remained  was  to  take  the  utmost  possible  ad- 
vantage of  the  situation  created  by  themselves,  and  this 
they  did  with  incontestable  ability.  Henry  IV.  succeeded 
with  the  youthful  beauty  only  by  the  payment  of  a  sum  of 
100,000  crowns  and,  a  far  graver  matter,  a  written  promise 

ao8 


HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D  ENTRACiUES. 


HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES       209 

of  marriage  in  good  and  due  form  if  she  should  become 
enceinte  within  six  months  and  afterwards  bear  a  son.  The 
interesting  point  in  the  matter  is  that  at  that  very  moment 
Henry's  ambassadors  were  negotiating  his  union  with  Marie 
de  Medicis,  the  niece  of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany.  The 
first  term  of  the  contract  was  fulfilled  within  the  stipulated 
time,  but  a  premature  confinement  in  June,  1600,  relieved 
Henry  of  some  of  the  difficulties  into  which  his  passion  might 
have  plunged  him.  It  cost  him  his  repose  as  a  man,  but  at 
least  his  royal  dignity  was  saved. 

When  the  new  queen  was  installed  in  the  Louvre, 
Henriette,  who  had  recently  received  the  Marquisate  of 
Verneuil,  took  it  into  her  head  to  want  to  be  presented  to 
Marie.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  long  period  of  tem- 
pests that  transformed  into  a  hell  the  private  life  of  the 
Vert-Galant,  the  life  that  hitherto  had  been  so  sweet  and 
gentle  with  Corisande  and  Gabrielle.  Matters  came  to  a 
head  when,  in  the  autumn  of  1601,  Marie  de  Medicis  and 
Henriette  d'Entragues  each  presented  Henry  with  a  son. 
Henriette  exclaimed;  "  The  Florentine  has  a  son  and  I  have 
the  Dauphin.  The  King  is  my  husband.  I  have  his  promise 
in  my  possession."  And  when  Henry  manifested  a  desire  for 
the  new-born  child  to  be  brought  up  at  Saint-Germain  with 
his  other  children,  she  insolently  replied:  "I  don*t  wish  him 
to  associate  with  all  those  bastards."  Out  of  spite,  she  entered 
into  a  conspiracy  that  had  been  formed  against  the  King 
during  the  early  days  of  her  favour  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy 
and  Marshal  Biron,  and  which  was  afterwards  joined  by  her 
father  and  her  half-brother,    Charles    de    Valois,    Comte 


2IO       HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES 

d'Auvergne.  It  is  well  known  how  this  plot  was  discovered. 
how  Biron  paid  for  his  ambition  with  the  loss  of  his  head, 
and  how,  thanks  to  the  protection  afforded  them  by  Hen- 
riette's  complicity  in  the  affair,  Auvergne  and  d'Entragues 
got  off  with  a  few  weeks'  imprisonment. 

Unworthy  as  she  was,  Henry  IV.  always  loved  her.  Let 
us  do  him  this  justice,  however — he  spared  no  efforts  to  break 
away  from  her,  but  could  not  succeed.  He  had  only  one 
remedy  possible  and  that  was  to  cure  like  with  like,  to  replace 
the  old  mistress  with  a  new  one.  From  this  period  date  his 
relations  with  Mademoiselle  de  Bueil,  created  Comtesse  de 
Moret,  and  Mademoiselle  des  Essarts,  made  Comtesse  de 
Romorantin,  ephemeral  connections  which  he  only  sought  a 
pretext  in  order  to  break,  being  in  haste  to  return  to 
Henriette  no  matter  what  happened.  In  fact,  it  was  with 
her  alone  that  he  could  find  the  charm  of  conversation  that 
he  demanded  quite  as  much  as  sensual  indulgence.  One  day 
he  spoke  to  Rosny  in  terms  which  form  some  slight  excuse 
for  the  immorality  of  his  domestic  arrangements.  Rosny's 
account  of  a  typical  scene  is  as  follows :  "  The  Queen  was 
soon  informed  that  the  King  had  given  Mile.  d'Entragues  a 
promise  of  marriage,  the  original  of  which  had  been  torn  up 
by  me,  but  another  had  been  drawn  up  by  the  King;  and 
she  never  ceased  tormenting  him  till  he  had  promised  to  get 
from  his  mistress  this  paper,  which  all  ecclesiastics  whom  she 
consulted  assured  her  was  of  no  force.  Henry,  merely  to 
oblige  her,  at  length  resolved  to  desire  the  Marquise  to 
restore  it;  and  he  demanded  it  in  a  manner  that  showed  he 
would  not  be  refused. 


HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES       21 1 

"  The  Marquise  de  Verneull,  on  the  first  Intimation  that  it 
was  expected  she  should  resign  the  promise  of  marriage, 
threw  herself  into  the  most  violent  transport  of  rage  imagi- 
nable, and  told  the  King  Insolently  that  he  might  seek  It 
elsewhere.  Henry,  that  he  might  finish  at  once  all  the  harsh 
things  he  had  to  say  to  her,  began  to  reproach  her  for  her 
plots  with  the  Comte  d'Auvergne,  her  brother,  and  the 
malcontents  of  the  realm.  She  would  not  condescend  to 
clear  herself  of  this  Imputed  crime,  but  assuming  in  her  turn 
the  language  of  reproach,  she  told  him  that  It  was  not  possi- 
ble to  live  any  longer  with  him ;  that  as  he  grew  old  he  grew 
jealous  and  suspicious,  and  that  she  would  joyfully  break  oflE 
a  connection  for  which  she  had  been  too  ill  rewarded  to  find 
anything  agreeable  In  It,  and  which  rendered  her  an  object  of 
public  hatred. 

She  carried  her  insolence  so  far  as  to  speak  of  the 
Queen  in  terms  so  contemptuous,  that,  If  we  may  believe 
Henry,  he  was  upon  the  point  of  striking  her;  and,  in 
order  that  he  might  not  be  forced  to  commit  such  an  out- 
rage to  decency,  he  was  obliged  to  quit  her  abruptly,  but  full 
of  rage  and  vexation,  which  he  was  at  no  pains  to  conceal, 
swearing  that  he  would  make  her  restore  the  promise  that 
had  raised  this  storm. 

"  Henry  fell  again  upon  the  good  qualities  of  his  mistress 
when  out  of  those  capricious  humours,  and  those  sudden  gusts 
of  passion  had  subsided.  He  praised  with  a  transport  of 
delight  the  charms  of  her  conversation,  her  sprightly  wit, 
her  repartees  so  poignant,  yet  so  full  of  delicacy  and  spirit; 
and  here  Indeed  he  had  some  foundation  for  his  praises.    The 


212       HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES 

Queen's  temper  and  manners  were  so  different  that  the  con- 
trast made  him  still  more  sensible  of  those  charms  in  his  mis- 
tress. *  I  find  nothing  of  all  this  at  home/  he  said  to  me.  *  I 
receive  neither  society,  amusement,  nor  content  from  my 
wife;  her  conversation  is  unpleasing,  her  temper  harsh,  she 
never  accommodates  herself  to  my  humour,  nor  shares  in  any 
of  my  cares.  When  I  enter  her  apartment  and  approach  her 
with  tenderness,  or  begin  to  talk  familiarly  with  her,  she 
receives  me  with  so  cold  and  forbidding  an  air  that  I  quit 
her  in  disgust  and  am  compelled  to  seek  consolation  else- 
where.' 

"  Henry's  passion  for  Mademoiselle  d'Entragues  was  one 
of  those  unhappy  diseases  of  the  mind,  that,  like  a  slow 
poison,  preyed  upon  the  principles  of  life.  This  Prince  suf- 
fered all  the  insolence,  the  caprices,  and  inequalities  of  tem- 
per that  a  proud  and  ambitious  woman  is  capable  of 
showing. 

"The  Marquise  de  Vemeuil  had  wit  enough  to  discover 
the  power  she  had  over  the  King;  and  this  power  she  never' 
exerted  but  to  torment  him.  They  now  seldom  met  but  to 
quarrel." 

In  1608,  they  were  again  reconciled,  but  only  for  a  few 
months.  In  December,  after  many  renewed  quarrels,  he 
finally  sent  the  Marquise  away ;  and  she  asked  nothing  better 
than  to  regain  her  liberty,  as  for  the  moment  she  had  other 
dark  schemes.  In  fact,  she  was  deeply  engaged  in  those 
intrigues  with  Spain  in  which  we  must  seek  the  secret  of  the 
tragic  end  of  Henry  IV.  Thanks  to  the  success  of  the  crime, 
neither  she  nor  her  accomplices,  Epernon  and  the  Guises, 


HENRIETTE  DE  BALZAC  D'ENTRAGUES       213 

were  troubled.  But  impunity  was  her  last  triumph.  She 
never  attained  her  ardent  desire  to  induce  the  Duke  of  Guise 
to  marry  her.  She  was  forced  to  resign  herself  to  retreat,  and 
by  the  indulgence  of  gourmandism,  in  which  she  was  exceed- 
ingly gross,  to  cheat  that  devouring  thirst  for  that  delicate 
incense  that  rises  towards  thrones. 


SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH 

(1660 — 1744) 
W.    C.    TAYLOR 

SARAH,  "  the  viceroy  over  Queen  Anne,"  as  she  was 
popularly  designated,  was  the  daughter  of  a  country 
gentleman  named  Jennings,  at  whose  seat,  near  St.  Albans, 
she  was  born  May  29,  1660.  Her  family  had  long  been 
attached  to  the  Court,  and  at  an  early  age  she  was  received 
into  the  household  of  the  Duchess  of  York,  to  whom  her 
sister,  the  celebrated  Duchess  of  Tyrconnel,  acted  as  lady  of 
honour.  Sarah  Jennings  was  engaged  as  an  attendant  and 
playmate  of  the  Princess  Anne;  and  the  friendship  thus 
formed  in  youth  survived  for  some  years  the  accession  of  the 
latter  to  the  throne. 

While  the  charms  of  Sarah  Jennings  were  the  pride  of  the 
little  circle  formed  round  the  Duchess  of  York,  John 
Churchill,  gentleman  of  the  bed-chamber  to  the  Duke,  was 
not  less  celebrated  for  his  personal  attractions  and  elegance 
of  manner  among  his  compeers.  An  attachment  was  soon 
formed  between  him  and  Sarah,  which  was  warmly 
encouraged  by  their  royal  patrons.  She  refused  the  admired 
Earl  of  Lindsay,  afterwards  Marquis  of  Ancaster,  to  link 
her  fate  with  a  young  adventurer,  who  had  scarce  any  inher- 
itance but  his  sword ;  while  Churchill  had  to  resist  the  most 

214 


SARAH,   DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH. 


SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH  215 

urgent  representations  from  his  family  to  enrich  himself  by 
marriage  with  some  heiress. 

The  youthful  pair  followed  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
York,  when  the  jealousies  of  the  people  of  England,  raised 
to  a  kind  of  madness  by  the  calumnies  and  perjuries  of  Titus 
Oates,  compelled  them  to  go  into  a  kind  of  voluntary  exile. 
Their  fidelity  was  rewarded  by  a  peerage  when  the  Duke 
ascended  the  English  throne  as  James  II.,  and  Lord  Churchill 
was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  rising  statesmen  of  his  age. 
He,  however,  was  more  anxious  to  retire  into  privacy  and 
enjoy  domestic  felicity  with  his  beautiful  wife,  than  to  pursue 
the  dangerous  paths  of  ambition;  but  Lady  Churchill,  who 
had  renewed  her  intimacy  with  the  Princess  Anne,  detained 
him  at  Court,  and  involved  him  in  the  complicated  intrigues 
which  finally  led  to  the  Revolution.  Such  was  the  friend- 
ship between  Lady  Churchill  and  the  Princess,  that,  to  avoid 
the  encumbrance  of  title,  they  resolved  to  correspond  under 
feigned  names,  her  Royal  Highness  assuming  the  name  of 
Morley,  and  Lady  Churchill  that  of  Freeman. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  misconduct  and 
Impolicy  by  which  James  II.  alienated  from  his  cause  all 
parties  in  the  British  nation;  nor  to  show  how  all  parties, 
deceiving  themselves  and  each  other,  brought  public  affairs 
into  what  the  Americans  call  such  "  a  pretty  particular  fix," 
that  their  only  means  of  extrication  was  the  elevation  of 
William  III.  to  the  throne, — a  political  necessity  to  which 
all  submitted,  but  which  nearly  all  most  cordially  detested. 
Lady  Churchill,  on  this  occasion.  Induced  the  Princess  Anne 
to  desert  the  cause  of  her  royal  father.    The  ladles  fled  from 


2i6         SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH 

their  apartments  at  the  Cockpit;  and  having  obtained  the 
escort  of  that  eminent  member  of  the  church  militant,  Comp- 
ton,  Bishop  of  London,  proceeded  to  Nottingham,  and  thence 
to  Chatsworth,  the  residence  of  the  Earl  of  Devonshire.  The 
prelate,  who  had  in  his  early  life  been  an  officer  of  dragoons, 
rode  before  their  carriage,  with  pistols  at  his  saddle-bow  and 
a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand.  Colley  Gibber,  who  formed  part 
of  the  escort  that  brought  the.ladies  to  Chatsworth,  and  after- 
wards waited  upon  them  at  table,  records  in  his  Memoirs 
that  the  beauty  and  grace  of  Lady  Churchill  made  an  impres- 
sion on  his  mind  which  the  lapse  of  fifty  years  had  not 
effaced. 

Though  William  created  Lord  Churchill  Earl  of  Marl- 
borough, he  viewed  that  nobleman  with  mingled  suspicion 
and  dislike,  feelings  which  were  aggravated  by  the  quarrel 
between  Queen  Mary  and  the  Princess  Anne.  Marl- 
borough and  his  wife  adhered  to  the  cause  of  the  Princess; 
and  the  firmness  with  which  she  acted  at  the  crisis  was 
generally  attributed  to  the  spirited  advice  of  the  high-minded 
Countess.  King  William  himself  stood  in  awe  of  Lady  Marl- 
borough, whose  cutting  sarcasms  were  the  more  effective 
from  the  consciousness  of  their  being  merited ;  and  at  length 
he  had  recourse  to  the  harsh  measure  of  forbidding  her  the 
Court.  The  Princess  Anne  accompanied  her  injured  favourite 
into  retirement.  They  were  received  by  the  Duke  of  Somerset 
at  Sion  House,  and  had  leisure  to  reflect  on  the  ingratitude 
of  the  monarch  whom  they  had  helped  to  raise  to  the  throne. 
Under  these  circumstances,  Marlborough  renewed  his  com- 
munications with  the  deposed  King,  and  projected  a  con- 


SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH    217 

federacy  to  secure  his  restoration.  The  plot  was  discovered 
before  it  reached  maturity.  Marlborough  was  arrested  and 
sent  to  the  Tower;  but  as  no  evidence  could  be  obtained 
against  him,  he  was  soon  released.  On  the  death  of  Queen 
Mary,  King  William  was  outwardly  reconciled  to  his  sister- 
in-law  ;  the  Princess  Anne  was  invited  to  reside  at  St.  James's, 
and  the  Earl  of  Marlborough  was  appointed  chief  preceptor 
to  her  son,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  heir-apparent  to  the 
Crown.  On  the  death  of  this  Prince,  the  coolness  between 
William  and  Anne  again  became  manifest,  and  rapidly 
ripened  into  hostility.  The  result  might  have  been  a  civil 
war  in  England,  had  not  the  death  of  King  William  placed 
Anne  peacefully  on  the  throne  of  England. 

Marlborough,  placed  at  the  head  of  the  English  army  dur- 
ing the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  soon  reached  a  height 
of  military  glory  to  which  only  one  other  English  general 
ever  attained.  But  while  he  was  winning  honours  abroad, 
the  imperious  temper  of  his  wife  was  overthrowing  his 
influence  in  the  cabinet.  Not  contented  with  being  the  equal 
of  her  sovereign,  she  affected  to  treat  the  Queen  as  a  mere 
dependent,  and  even  gave  way  to  a  fit  of  unruly  temper  when 
her  husband  was  raised  to  a  dukedom  without  her  consent 
having  been  previously  obtained.  An  anecdote  related  by  her- 
self curiously  illustrates  the  strength  of  her  passions.  She 
had  a  beautiful  head  of  hair,  which  her  husband  greatly 
admired:  to  vex  him,  on  some  trifling  difference,  she  cut  off 
her  hair  and  laid  it  in  some  place  likely  to  attract  his  notice. 
When  she  came  to  examine  the  result  the  hair  had  disap- 
peared, nor  was  it  known  what  had  become  of  it  until  after 


2i8    SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH 

the  Duke's  death,  when  it  was  found  carefully  preserved 
in  a  cabinet  in  which  he  was  accustomed  to  deposit  his  most 
precious  treasures.  The  death  of  her  only  son,  the  Marquis 
of  Blandford,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  was  a  bitter  affliction 
to  the  Duchess.  It  occurred  at  a  time  when  her  political 
enemies  were  assailing  her  with  all  the  rancour  which  party 
spite  could  inspire,  and  when  her  insidious  foe,  Harley,  was 
secretly  undermining  her  in  the  Queen's  favour.  Still  the 
connections  she  had  formed  by  the  marriages  of  her  daughters 
gave  her  great  political  strength.  Henrietta,  the  first  and 
fairest,  was  united  to  Lord  Malton,  the  eldest  son  of  Lord 
Godolphin,  then  Prime  Minister ;  Anne  was  married  to  Lord 
Spencer,  son  of  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Sunderland ;  Eliz- 
abeth became  by  marriage  Countess,  and  afterwards  Duchess 
of  Bridgewater ;  and  Mary  became  the  wife  of  Lord 
Monthermer. 

The  glorious  victory  of  Blenheim  seemed  likely  to  confirm 
the  ascendancy  of  the  Marlboroughs ;  the  Queen  seemed  anx- 
ious to  encourage  rather  than  repress  the  lavish  gratitude 
of  the  nation  to  the  conquerer;  but  at  the  same  time  the 
correspondence  between  Morley  and  Freeman  was  fast  chang- 
ing its  friendly  tone,  and  the  Duchess  soon  perceived  in  the 
alteration  that  another  power  had  acquired  influence  over  the 
Queen's  mind.  The  new  favourite  was  Abigail  Hill,  after- 
wards Mrs.  Masham,  who  had  been  introduced  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Queen  by  the  Duchess  herself.  The  subservience 
of  Abigail  was,  of  course,  more  pleasing  to  the  feeble  mind 
of  Anne  than  the  despotism  of  Sarah.  But  Mrs.  Masham 
had  a  still  greater  advantage:  she  favoured  the  political 


SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH    219 

prejudices  of  the  Queen  in  favour  of  High  Church  principles, 
which  the  Duchess  had  vehemently  opposed;  and  she  was 
not  indisposed  to  the  cause  of  the  Pretender,  whom  the  Queen 
had  recently  begun  to  regard  with  the  feelings  of  a  brother. 
The  ascendancy  of  the  new  favourite  was  first  publicly  shown 
on  a  strange  occasion, — the  death  of  the  Queen's  husband, 
Prince  George  of  Denmark.  Anne  rather  ostentatiously 
sought  the  consoling  society  of  Mrs.  Masham,  and  interposed 
all  the  difficulties  of  official  etiquette  between  herself  and  the 
Duchess. 

The  trial  of  Dr.  Sacheverel,  who  was  impeached  by  the 
House  of  Commons  for  preaching  a  very  foolish  and  intem- 
perate sermon,  raised  a  popular  storm  against  the  Whigs, 
who  were  stigmatised  as  enemies  of  the  Church  in  every 
parish  throughout  England.  This  outburst  of  prejudice  and 
folly  gave  the  Queen  an  opportunity  she  had  long  desired. 
Lord  Godolphin  was  dismissed  from  office;  and,  though  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  was  permitted  to  retain  the  command 
of  the  army  for  a  short  time  longer,  he  was  subjected  to  so 
many  mortifications,  that  nothing  but  a  strong  sense  of  public 
duty  prevented  him  from  tendering  his  resignation. 

The  Duchess  retired  from  Court  to  her  residence  at 
Holywell  House,  near  St.  Albans,  where  after  some  time  she 
was  joined  by  the  Duke,  whom  his  enemies  had  deprived  of 
all  his  appointments.  He  had  long  sighed  for  domestic  peace 
and  tranquil  retirement;  but  such  blessings  he  was  never 
fated  to  enjoy.  The  Duchess,  baffled,  mortified,  and  disap- 
pointed, gave  full  scope  to  her  angry  passions;  she  quarrelled 
with  her  husband,  her  children,  and  her  friends;  In  the  most 


220    SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH 

innocent  action  she  discovered  something  amiss;  in  the  most 
indifferent  phrase  she  detected  premeditated  Insult.  The 
persecutions  of  the  Court  still  further  soured  her  temper:  to 
escape  from  them,  the  Duke  resolved  to  go  abroad;  and  the 
honours  with  which  he  was  everywhere  received  on  the  Con- 
tinent consoled  him  for  the  neglect  with  which  he  had  been 
treated  at  home. 

On  the  accession  of  George  I.,  Marlborough  was  restored 
to  the  command  of  the  army,  but  was  not  admitted  to  any 
share  of  political  power.  He  died  In  June,  1720,  leaving  to 
his  wife  the  greater  part  of  his  enormous  wealth.  The 
Duchess,  though  frequently  solicited,  refused  to  marry  again. 
But  she  lived  on  the  worst  of  terms  with  her  children  and 
grand-children;  their  quarrels,  indeed,  occupy  a  very  dis- 
proportionate share  of  the  scandalous  chronicles  of  the  time. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  give  one  specimen  of  these  family  dis- 
sensions: The  Duchess  having  quarrelled  with  her  grand- 
daughter. Lady  Anne  Egerton,  caused  the  young  lady's  por- 
trait to  be  blackened  over,  and  then  wrote  on  the  frame, 
"  She  is  blacker  within." 

The  Duchess  had  formed  a  project  for  uniting  her 
favourite  granddaughter,  Lady  Diana  Spencer,  to  Frederick, 
Prince  of  Wales,  which  was  disconcerted  by  the  interference 
of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  to  whom  she  ever  after  evinced  the 
most  Inveterate  hatred.  Her  imperious  temper  continued 
unchanged  to  the  last  hour  of  her  life.  It  was  said  that  fate 
Itself  was  compelled  to  yield  to  her  behests.  Once,  when 
very  111,  her  physicians  said  that  she  must  be  blistered,  or  she 
would  die,  upon  which  she  called  out,  "  I  won't  be  blis- 


SARAH,  DUCHESS  OF  MARLBOROUGH    221 

tered, — and  I  won't  die!  "  and  on  that  occasion  she  kept  her 
word.  Her  death  finally  took  place  at  Marlborough  House, 
October  18,  1744,  in  the  eighty-eighth  year  of  her  age. 
She  left  enormous  wealth:  thirty  thousand  a  year  to  her 
grandson,  Charles,  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  as  much  to 
his  brother;  and,  among  her  miscellaneous  bequests  were  ten 
thousand  pounds  to  Mr.  Pitt,  afterwards  Earl  of  Chatham, 
and  double  that  sum  to  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  for  the  zeal 
with  which  they  had  opposed  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  It  is  a 
pity  that  the  Duchess  should  be  remembered  by  her  eccen- 
tricities rather  than  her  abilities.  To  her  influence  no  small 
share  of  the  early  glories  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  must  be 
attributed;  and  she  may  also  claim  the  merit  of  having 
largely  contributed  to  secure  the  Hanoverian  succession. 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE 

(1619— 1679) 
HIPPOLYTE    DE    LAPORTE 

A  NNE    GENEVIEVE   DE    BOURBON    CONDE, 

JLA^Duchesse  de  Longuevllle,  daughter  of  Henri  II.  de 
Bourbon-Conde,  first  prince  of  the  blood,  and  Charlotte 
Marguerite  de  Montmorency,  was  born  the  29th  of  April, 
1 619,  in  the  Chateau  de  Vincennes,  where  her  father  was  a 
State  prisoner.  The  great  Conde  and  the  Prince  de  Conti 
were  her  brothers.  Taken  to  Court  by  her  mother,  she  won 
the  admiration  of  everybody;  her  beauty  alone  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  have  produced  this  effect;  but  the  delicacy 
of  her  mind  and  a  peculiar  grace  about  everything  that  she 
did  made  her  noticed  by  the  great  world  in  which  she  v/as 
destined  to  live,  and  especially  among  the  habitues  of  the 
Hotel  de  Rambouillet  that  she  delighted  to  frequent.  At 
the  age  of  nineteen  she  was  promised  to  the  Prince  de  Join- 
ville,  son  of  Henri  de  Lorraine,  Due  de  Guise;  this  young 
Prince  dying  in  Italy,  and  the  Due  de  Beaufort,  who  once 
had  sought  the  hand  of  Mademoiselle  de  Bourbon,  renounc- 
ing it,  she  married,  although  she  was  not  more  than  twenty- 
three,  the  Due  de  Longueville,  widower  of  the  daughter  of 
the  Count  de  Soissons,  who  was  forty-seven. 

Madame  de  Longueville  did  not  care  much  for  her  hus- 
band, who  retained  for  his  old  mistress,  Madame  de  Mont- 

222 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVII.LE 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE  223 

bazon,  an  attachment  of  which  his  young  wife  was,  naturally 
enough,  very  jealous.  She  soon  neglected  the  Duke.  She 
was  first  loved  by  Maurice,  Comte  de  Coligny,  son  of  the 
Marechal  de  Chatillon,  who  had  sought  her  in  marriage. 
The  Comte  de  Coligny  espoused  her  anger  against  Madame 
de  Montbazon,  fought  a  duel  with  the  Due  de  Guise,  and 
died  of  the  wounds  he  received. 

All  the  Memoir es  of  the  time  speak  of  the  trip  the  Duchess 
made  to  Miinster  in  1646,  where  her  husband  filled  the  post 
of  plenipotentiary.  This  trip,  which  afforded  a  thousand 
different  pleasures  to  this  Princess,  and  which  even  had,  so  to 
speak,  the  brilliancy  of  a  triumph,  had  been  instigated,  so 
they  say,  by  the  Prince  de  Conde,  displeased  at  seeing  his 
sister  return  the  passion  entertained  for  her  by  the  Prince  de 
Marsillac,  afterwards  Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld.  The 
honours  that  were  bestowed  upon  her  and  the  magnificence 
with  which  she  was  treated,  prove  not  only  the  regard  that 
was  felt  for  her  husband,  but  also  the  esteem  with  which  her 
qualities,  enhanced  by  an  unusual  charm  of  manner  and 
expression,  were  regarded. 

Scarcely  had  the  Treaty  of  Miinster  lifted  the  plague  of 
[foreign  wars  from  France  before  internal  dissensions  began 
to  trouble  the  Kingdom.  The  hatred  felt  by  Parliament  for 
Cardinal  Mazarin  gave  birth  to  the  Fronde,  of  which  the 
Duchesse  de  Longueville  soon  became  the  heroine.  She  was 
to  this  party  what  the  Duchesse  de  Montpensier  had  been 
to  the  League.  However,  she  did  not  attach  so  much 
importance  to  the  cause  that  she  supported.  Indifferent  in 
character,  she  was  not  much  attracted  to  activity  and  intrigue. 


224  MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE 

M.  Cousin  has  shown  that  before  her  relations  with  the 
Due  de  Rochefoucauld,  Madame  de  Longueville  was  a 
stranger  to  politics ;  she  was  only  occupied  with  wit  and  love- 
making,  letting  herself  be  led  in  everything  else  by  her  father 
and  brother.  But  when  once  La  Rochefoucauld  reigned  over 
her  heart,  she  gave  herself  up  entirely  to  him  and  was  only 
his  instrument;  he  inspired  her  with  ambition;  she  made  it 
a  point  of  honour,  and  doubtless  a  secret  happiness,  to  share 
his  destiny;  she  sacrificed  all  her  own  interests  for  him,  even 
her  family  interests,  and  the  greatest  sentiment  of  her  life, — 
her  tenderness  for  her  brother  Conde. 

She  shared  in  the  general  doubt  after  the  Day  of  the  Bar- 
ricades when  Anne  of  Austria  took  the  King,  her  son,  to  St. 
Germain,  on  the  5th  of  January,  1649.  The  greatest  con- 
fusion reigned  over  Paris  at  this  moment.  Perhaps  the 
Duchesse  de  Longueville  had  imbibed  in  the  political  meetings 
at  Miinster  the  taste  for  politics  and  negotiations;  once 
engaged  in  the  Fronde,  she  boldly  announced  her  intention 
of  remedying  the  general  disorder;  but  above  all  she  desired 
to  employ  means  that  would  bring  fame;  and  it  is  difficult 
to  deny  that  ambition,  although  not  the  acknowledged  goal, 
and  the  wish  to  exploit  her  mentality  played  a  great  part  in 
her  determination  to  join  the  party  opposed  to  Mazarin.  She 
made  her  husband  enter  with  her  and  put  herself  at  the  head 
of  that  party  with  the  Coadjutor  of  Paris,  afterwards  Cardi- 
nal de  Retz,  and  the  Prince  de  Conti,  her  second  brother.  As 
for  the  eldest,  the  Prince  de  Conde,  he  followed  the  King  and 
his  mother;  this  estranged  Madame  de  Longueville.  To 
assure  herself  still  further  of  the  confidence  of  Parliament 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE  225 

and  to  gain  that  of  the  populace  of  Paris,  while  the  Royal 
troops  besieged  it  (1649),  she  allowed  herself  to  be  con- 
ducted by  the  Coadjutor  to  the  town  hall,  with  the  Duchesse 
de  Bouillon.  Each  carried  in  her  arms  a  child  as  beautiful 
as  its  mother.  Here  the  Princess  established  her  residence; 
she  even  bore  a  son  here  on  the  29th  of  January;  and  the 
mayor,  with  his  aldermen,  carried  him  to  the  baptismal  font, 
where  he  was  named  Charles  Paris.  Councils  were 
assembled  in  the  Duchess's  chamber,  and  the  meetings  of 
Parliament  were  discussed  there,  as  well  as  the  movements 
of  the  army.  The  young  officers  received  their  rewards  here ; 
and  laid  the  trophies  of  victory  at  the  feet  of  the  heroines  of 
the  party.  During  the  three  months  that  the  blockade  of 
the  capital  lasted,  Madame  de  Longueville  had  the  greatest 
influence  over  all  the  decisions  against  the  Court  and  its 
interests.  The  articles  of  peace  of  March  11,  1649,  were 
also  drawn  up  in  her  apartment.  The  Duchess  repaired  to 
the  Queen;  but  neither  that  Princess  nor  the  Cardinal  were 
disposed  to  pardon  her,  and  the  coldness  they  showed  her  only 
increased  her  aversion  toward  the  favourite  minister, — an 
aversion  that  she  finally  communicated  to  the  Prince  de 
Conde.  Every  one  knows  that  the  affection  the  latter  enter- 
tained for  his  sister,  with  whom  he  wished  to  be  reconciled, 
was  extreme, — in  fact,  it  even  gave  rise  to  odious  reports. 
The  Prince  de  ContI  also  loved  Madame  de  Longueville 
with  a  kind  of  passion.  The  Court  intrigues  and  the  spirit 
of  vengeance  that  animated  Mazarin  induced  the  Queen  to 
have  these  Princes,  as  well  as  the  Due  de  Longueville, 
arrested.    This  happened  on  the  i8th  of  January,  1650,  at 


226  MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE 

the  Palais-Royal,  to  which  these  three  personages  had  been 
beguiled  under  different  pretexts.  The  Duchess  had  also  been 
summoned ;  but  informed  in  time  and  seconded  by  her  friend, 
the  Princess  Palatine,  she  left  Paris  and  hastily  took  the  road 
to  Normandy.  Her  husband,  to  whom  she  held  more 
through  duty  and  interest  than  affection,  being  governor  of 
that  province,  she  hoped  to  bring  about  a  revolt,  or,  at  least, 
obtain  some  officers  who  would  command  forces  for  the  relief 
of  the  prisoners ;  but  the  Cardinal's  influence  was  paramount 
and  Madame  de  Longueville  was  not  received  as  she  had 
expected  to  be.  She  greatly  feared  falling  into  the  hands  of 
her  pursuers  sent  out  by  Mazarin  at  the  same  time  that  he 
sent  the  Queen-mother  to  Rouen  with  the  King  to  place 
that  young  Prince  at  the  head  of  several  troops,  and,  by 
that  means,  to  intimidate  the  rest  of  Normandy.  The  effect 
foreseen  by  the  Minister  took  place  immediately.  The 
Duchess,  seeing  all  her  hopes  shattered,  betook  herself  to  a 
little  port,  where  she  embarked  notwithstanding  the  very  bad 
weather.  She  was  shipwrecked  and  expected  to  be  drowned. 
Obliged  to  wander  under  several  disguises,  she  displayed 
much  courage  and  character.  Having  won  over  the  captain 
of  an  English  vessel  at  Havre,  she  made  him  take  her  to 
Rotterdam.  The  Prince  of  Orange  arrived  there  with 
his  family  to  see  her  and  persuade  her  to  settle  herself  at  The 
Hague ;  but  she  preferred  to  go  to  Stenay  Turenne,  which  she 
had  gained  for  the  Fronde  party.  As  she  passed  through 
Flanders,  the  Archduke's  minister  presented  his  compliments 
to  her  and  proposed  a  treaty  of  alliance;  but  she  announced 
her  resolution  to  do  nothing  without  the  concurrence  of  the 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE  227 

Illustrious  warrior  whom  we  shall  soon  name.  He  gave,  as 
one  may  well  believe,  a  reception  to  Conde's  sister  worthy  of 
her  and  of  him ;  here  they  drew  up  a  treaty  In  which  It  was 
stipulated  that  the  two  armies  should  unite  and  that  the  war 
should  be  undertaken  with  the  aid  and  support  of  the  King  of 
Spain  for  the  deliverance  of  the  French  princes.  This  plan 
was  regretfully  adopted  by  Turenne,  whom  the  King  was 
about  to  confer  with  his  new  dignity  as  marshal  of  France. 
Moreover,  it  has  been  shown  that  this  great  man  was  not  as 
well  treated  by  the  Duchess  when  he  spoke  of  love  as  when 
they  discussed  war  or  party  interests.  It  was  also  at  Stenay 
that  a  manifesto,  which  she  had  printed  In  Brussels,  was  cir- 
culated. This  was  directed  against  the  Court,  which  at  the 
instigation  of  Mazarin,  had,  by  means  of  a  declaration  of  the 
King,  dated  May  7,  1650,  signified  that  this  Princess  and  her 
consorts  would  be  regarded  as  guilty  of  lese-majestSj  if,  at 
the  end  of  a  month,  they  did  not  return  to  their  duty.  In  her 
manifesto,  the  Duchesse  de  Longueville  accused  Cardinal 
Mazarin  of  having  sworn  the  ruin  of  the  Conde  family  and 
of  preventing  a  general  peace  from  being  concluded.  At 
Stenay,  corresponding  with  the  coalesed  Princes  from  outside, 
she  obtained  soldiers  and  money.  La  Rochefoucauld,  whose 
enterprises  were  never  independent  of  the  plans  of  his  friend 
(they  were  still  intimately  connected  at  this  period),  sent  her 
from  his  government  at  Poitou  some  good  advice  for  her  con- 
duct. Finally,  with  the  aid  of  those  who  supported  her  cause, 
she  triumphed  over  the  hatred  that  the  Cardinal  had  avowed 
for  her  and  her  brothers,  and  the  Court,  yielding  to  the 
entreaties  of  all  the  French  nobility  and  Parliament,  restored 


228  MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE 

liberty  to  the  Princes,  after  three  months  of  detention,  Feb- 
ruary II,  1 65 1.  While  the  latter  and  the  Due  de  Longue- 
ville  with  them  on  their  return  to  Paris  received  homage 
usually  bestowed  upon  conquerors  only  and  fetes  were  given 
to  them,  the  Duchess  continued  her  negotiations  at  Stenay  to 
end  the  war;  she  did  not  leave  that  village  until  the  King 
sent  Fouquet  de  Marsilly  there,  with  the  order  to  watch  the 
meetings.  The  greatest  honours  were  bestowed  upon  the 
Princess  on  her  way  home,  and  this  time  she  was  favourably 
welcomed  by  the  King  and  the  Queen-mother.  Soon  the 
Court  and  the  city  rushed  to  her  house.  First  of  all,  she 
busied  herself  in  Paris,  as  she  had  promised  the  Spaniards,  to 
bring  about  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace.  For  this  cause 
she  opened  her  house  to  foreign  ministers  and  treated  with 
them  without  any  participation  of  the  Court  of  France, 
which,  naturally  enough,  was  hurt. 

Fresh  dissensions  breaking  out  between  the  Queen  and  the 
house  of  Conde,  the  Duchess  left  for  Bourges,  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  government  of  M.  le  Prince,  who  had  retired 
thither.  A  sea  of  troubles  existed  at  Bordeaux,  where  the 
Princesse  de  Conti  was  living;  the  Duchess  repaired  to  her 
side.  La  Rochefoucauld,  not  content  with  having  abandoned 
the  Duchesse  de  Longueville,  had  tried  to  make  her  lose  the 
confidence  of  M.  le  Prince.  Then,  through  spite,  or  because 
she  was  beginning  to  be  disgusted  with  worldly  afiFairs,  she 
got  permission  to  join  her  aunt,  the  widow  of  the  Due  de 
Montmorency,  decapitated  at  Toulouse.  This  illustrious 
lady  had  become  Superior  of  the  Convent  of  the  Visitation  at 
Moulins.    The  Duchesse  de  Montmorency  was  the  model 


MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE  229 

of  all  the  virtues,  and  by  her  side  her  niece  regained  those 
religious  sentiments  that  had  filled  her  youthful  mind;  but 
the  Due  de  Longueville,  who  had  negotiated  successfully  for 
his  wife,  came  at  the  end  of  ten  months  to  take  her  back  to 
his  government  in  Normandy,  where  she  was  not  slow  in  con- 
quering all  hearts  and  meriting  the  benedictions  of  the  poor 
for  her  charity. 

Gradually  the  animadversion  of  the  persons  most  opposed 
to  Madame  de  Longueville  was  calmed;  and  the  Queen- 
mother  herself,  seeing  that  she  ceased  to  mingle  in  affairs 
that  would  compromise  the  public  peace,  ended  in  being  more 
gracious  to  her. 

However,  Conde  was  now  engaged  in  a  new  war,  which 
lasted  until  1659,  the  period  of  the  peace  of  the  Pyrenees  and 
Louis  XIV. 's  marriage.  When  Don  Louis  de  Haro  repre- 
sented the  interests  of  the  prince  of  the  blood,  Mazarin  con- 
stantly brought  forward  the  character  of  the  sister  against 
the  brother,  and  Conde's  weakness  in  following  her  counsels. 

"As  for  you  Spaniards,"  he  said  to  the  diplomatist,  "you 
can  talk  about  this  easily.  Your  women  only  meddle  for  the 
sake  of  making  love ;  but  it  is  not  the  same  in  France,  and  we 
have  three  who  are  capable  of  governing  or  of  overthrowing 
three  great  Kingdoms:  the  Duchesse  de  Longueville,  the 
Princesse  Palatine,  and  the  Duchesse  de  Chevreuse." 

Finally,  the  troubles,  dangers,  and  evils  that  had  succeeded 
one  another  in  France  for  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  were 
over.  Upon  the  Prince  de  Conde's  return,  his  sister,  restored 
to  grace,  like  the  other  rebels,  returned  with  the  Due  de 
Longueville  to  Court,  which  now  became  calm  and  brilliant 


230  MADAME  DE  LONGUEVILLE 

again.  Society  recovered  all  its  amenity  and  charm:  the 
happy  days  of  literature  began.  Madame  de  Longueville, 
now  about  forty  years  of  age,  was  perfectly  qualified  to  shine 
with  brilliancy  in  this  Court,  where  she  had  not  now  to  fight 
the  Cardinal,  who  died  in  1661 ;  but  she  was  disgusted  with 
intrigues  and  contented  herself  with  looking  after  the  interests 
of  her  family.  By  degrees,  devotion,  to  which  she  had  been 
for  some  time  again  violently  attracted,  brought  calm  to  her 
soul.  She  lived  at  Rouen  sometimes,  sometimes  on  her  estate 
in  Normandy,  and  sometimes  in  Paris,  where  she  assiduously 
visited  her  friends,  the  Carmelites  in  the  Rue  St.  Jacques. 
The  Due  de  Longueville  dying  in  1663,  his  widow  practically 
retired  from  the  world,  without,  however,  relinquishing  what 
her  rank  and  good  breeding  demanded  on  important  occa- 
sions. She  spent  her  time  in  religious  devotion  and  superin- 
tending the  education  of  her  sons.  From  this  time  forward, 
living  more  habitually  in  the  capital,  she  bought  the  Hotel 
d'Epernon,  Rue  St.  Thomas  du  Louvre,  which  for  a  long 
time  kept  the  name  of  Hotel  de  Longueville ;  but  she  also  had 
a  lodging  with  the  Carmelites.  In  1672,  her  sister-in-law, 
the  Princesse  de  Conti,  left  her  the  care  and  education  of  her 
children.  The  war  with  Holland  put  the  religious  virtue 
of  this  lady  to  the  greatest  test.  The  son  born  in  the  city- 
hall  of  Paris,  and  who  since  the  death  of  his  father  had  been 
known  by  the  name  of  the  Comte  de  St.  Paul,  was  killed  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three  years  at  the  famous  passage  of  the 
Rhine  (June  12,  1672).  The  Duchesse  de  Longueville  then 
devoted  herself  entirely  to  religion.  She  died  on  the  15th  of 
April,  1679,  aged  fifty-nine. 


CATHERINE  II.,  EMPRESS  OF  RUSSIA 

(1729—1796) 
HERMAN  MERIVALE 

THE  name  of  the  Empress  Catherine  is  more  famih'ar  to 
European  ears  as  that  of  the  sanguinary  destroyer  of 
Polish  independence  than  of  the  second  founder  of  Russian 
greatness.  And  to  many  readers,  perhaps,  it  is  a  name 
which  calls  up  even  more  readily  associations  of  a  simply 
ignominious  character.  European  history  has  preserved  no 
other  record,  certainly  not  since  the  days  of  the  Caesars,  of 
such  utter  obliteration  of  moral  sense  and  self-respect  in  habit- 
ual profligacy,  as  were  exhibited  especially  in  the  later  years 
of  her  reign.  It  was  a  state  of  things  in  which  a  so-called 
civilised  and  Christian  palace  seemed  reduced  for  a  period 
to  the  level  of  more  than  savage  licence;  self-indulgence  of 
every  kind  was  without  limit  or  disguise,  and  scandal  itself — 
that  which  furnishes  the  daily  interest  of  ordinary  courts, 
and  the  common  link  between  that  class  of  society  which 
swims  and  that  which  sinks — had  almost  ceased  to  exist, 
because  the  sensibilities  in  which  it  originates  were  altogether 
blunted,  and  the  observer  had  ceased  to  be  scandalised  at  any- 
thing. But  with  the  disorders  of  the  Czarina's  private  life 
we  need  have  no  concern  on  the  present  occasion,  except  in 
so  far  as  they  aifected  her  conduct  of  public  afFairs;  and  so, 

231 


232      CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA 

in  the  name  of  common  decency,  we  will  let  the  curtain  drop 
on  Catherine  the  woman,  and  rise  on  Catherine  the  ruler. 

Her  training  was  one  of  no  common  severity  and  calculated 
to  develop  to  the  utmost  the  gifts  of  a  mind  of  first-rate 
power,  as  well  as  tact  and  acuteness. 

She  was  brought  a  mere  child  from  Germany,  to  be  deliv- 
ered to  a  husband  whom  she,  and  those  whom  she  inspired, 
may  have  painted  in  too  dark  colours ;  but  who  certainly  seems 
from  all  we  know  of  him  to  have  been  little  above  a  cunning 
idiot  in  intellect,  and  a  brute  in  propensities.  She  had  to  live 
for  some  years  in  dangerous  proximity  of  rank  and  position 
to  her  predecessor,  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  whose  mind, 
though  not  originally  weak,  was  impaired  by  habitual  self- 
indulgence;  not  an  ill-natured  personage,  nor  ill-affected 
towards  herself,  but  irritable,  gusty,  suspicious,  and  only  to 
be  propitiated  by  watchful  cajolery.  Handsome,  audacious, 
and  intellectual,  Catherine  passed  the  best  years  of  youth  in 
a  Court  composed  of  drunken,  uneducated  men  and  frivolous 
women,  whose  range  of  ideas  was  confined  to  show,  except 
when  it  extended  to  intrigue  and  partisanship.  And  the  con- 
sequences to  be  dreaded  from  a  single  false  step  amidst  the 
pitfalls  through  which  her  path  lay  were  not  merely  court 
disfavour,  or  less  of  influence;  the  convent  amidst  the  snows 
of  Archangel,  the  prison  vault  below  the  level  of  the  Neva, 
Siberia,  the  scaffold,  these  were  in  daily,  hardly  in  distant, 
prospect.  By  the  time  her  husband  ascended  the  throne  he 
and  she  had  become  mortal  enemies ;  he  had  thrown  her  aside 
for  others,  and  she  had  been  notoriously  and  all  but  avowedly 
unfaithful  to  him.     Thenceforth  it  became  a  struggle  for 


CATHERINK  II.,   EMPRESS  OF  RUSSIA. 


CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA      233 

existence  between  the  two.  Had  she  not  accomplished  the 
revolution  of  1 762,  her  life  or  liberty  would  have  been  assur- 
edly forfeit.  Had  his  life  been  spared  after  his  dethrone- 
ment, the  next  turn  of  the  wheel  would  have  placed  her 
again  at  his  mercy.  Whether  she  was  actually  guilty  or  cog- 
nisant of  his  murder  is  an  unsettled  problem:  and  those  who 
are  inclined  may  give  her  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  for  it  is 
probable  that  those  who  accomplished  the  design  would  have 
deemed  themselves  more  likely  to  be  embarrassed  than  pro- 
tected by  her  participation  in  it.  But  she  made  it  her  own  by 
adoption  of  its  results,  and  by  the  strongest  devotion  to  its 
perpetrators. 

Adversity  first  made  her  a  student;  and  then  her  strong 
imagination  always  dwelling  on  the  part  she  might  one  day 
have  to  play  combined  with  her  craving  for  mental  employ- 
ment to  increase  her  passion  for  books,  especially  such  as 
might  afford  nourishment  to  the  future  ruler  of  men. 
Plutarch,  Tacitus,  Montaigne,  Voltaire  were  her  early 
favourites.  And  she  was  a  reader  of  that  class  in  whose 
powerful  memory  whatever  they  acquire  becomes  a  fixed 
possession.  She  had  gone  into  that  purgatory  of  her  youth  a 
girl,  with  scarcely  opened  mind  and  childish  tastes ;  she  came 
out  of  it  fit  to  correspond  on  equal  terms  with  Voltaire  and 
Diderot,  and  to  discuss  public  affairs  with  the  most  exper- 
ienced members  of  her  council. 

Another  and  even  more  important  result  of  this  iron  dis- 
cipline was  the  singular  equanimity  which  characterised 
Catherine,  not  merely  in  special  conjunctures,  but  throughout 
the  whole  of  her  long  and  chequered  reign.     The  gift  of  a 


234      CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA 

good-natured  and  forgiving  disposition — Gutmiithigkeit,  the 
favourite  German  name,  is  that  which  best  expresses  it — had 
been  improved  by  the  lessons  of  necessity.  Inured  to  rebuffs, 
slights,  mortifications,  she  had  learned  to  bear  opposition  of 
all  kinds  with  a  calmness  strange  in  any  one,  most  strange  in 
a  proud  woman  and  absolute  sovereign.  Inured  to  win  her 
own  way  to  her  ends  through  patience  and  tact,  she  carried 
into  the  council-room  and  senate  the  same  long-suffering, 
good  humour,  much  enduring  of  violence,  selfishness,  and 
tiresomeness,  which  had  been  so  precious  to  her  in  the  early 
trials  of  her  married  childhood. 

The  same  independence  and  boldness  of  thought,  and  dis- 
regard of  mere  conventional  servitudes,  characterised  her  in 
lesser  as  in  greater  matters.  It  was  very  conspicuous  in  the 
etiquette  of  her  Court.  The  ceremonial  of  that  of  Russia, 
when  she  was  introduced  to  It,  had  been  a  mixture  of  barbar- 
ism and  pompousness.  That  of  the  German  sovereign 
houses,  from  which  she  sprang,  was  pedantic  in  the  extreme. 
She  had  scarcely  been  a  year  on  the  throne  before  she  had 
placed  It  on  a  footing  which  charmed  all  observers  by  its  union 
of  ease  with  dignity.  A  German  envoy  (Sacken)  cannot 
disguise  his  astonishment  at  It.  He  writes  of  the  habits  of 
the  residence  at  Czarsko  Selo,  In  1774:  "People  appear 
there  without  swords  or  ribands !  The  Empress  goes  Into  her 
cabinet,  and  comes  out  again,  unnoticed;  and  it  is  not  the 
custom  for  any  of  her  attendants  to  appear  as  If  they  observed 
ber,  or  to  pay  her  the  slightest  obeisance  as  she  passes."  And 
for  many  years  her  demeanour  in  daily  society  continued  to 
exhibit  the  same  graceful  absence  of  constraint. 


CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA     235 

The  activity  of  the  first  years  of  her  government  seemed 
to  partake  of  the  supernatural.  She  accomplished  the  secu- 
larisation of  the  vast  estates  of  the  clergy — a  work  conceived 
by  Peter  the  Great,  and  undertaken  by  her  husband,  but  of 
which  the  execution  was  left  to  herself.  She  commenced, 
and  made  some  progress  with,  a  general  code  of  jurisprudence 
for  her  empire.  She  laid  the  foundation  of  great  schemes 
of  national  education.  She  planted  her  favourite  German 
colonies  in  the  south.  And  (by  far  the  most  important 
undertaking  of  all)  she  launched  the  vast  project  of  emanci- 
pating the  serfs. 

It  was  said  of  her,  coarsely  but  truly,  that  she  would  have 
been  great,  indeed,  but  for  the  excess  of  two  qualities — ^the 
love  of  man  and  the  love  of  glory.  Then  the  easy  successes, 
and  singular  brilliancy,  of  the  first  Turkish  campaigns  excited 
her  enthusiastic  spirit.  The  "  road  to  Constantinople " 
seemed,  indeed,  more  nearly  open  to  her  in  1770  than  even 
to  her  grandson,  in  1853.  It  was  only  by  degrees,  and  after 
many  a  defeat,  that  the  slow  but  obstinate  energies  of  the 
Ottoman  race  were  awakened,  and  the  struggle  became  one 
of  exhausting  duration,  in  which  Russia  sustained  no  repulse 
of  consequence,  but  could  only  make  way,  step  by  step, 
through  endless  expenditure  of  men  and  treasure.  During 
great  part  of  her  reign,  the  Russian  Empire  was  so  denuded 
of  both  by  the  constant  drain  of  Turkish,  and,  in  a  less  degree, 
of  Polish  warfare,  that  improvements  could  not  be  even  ser- 
iously endeavoured  in  an  internal  administration  which  had 
become  an  engine  solely  devoted  to  the  purposes  of  raising 
troops  and  levying  taxes. 


236      CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA 

Such  was  the  price  at  which  her  brilliant  conquests  were 
achieved.  Her  arms  were,  of  course,  not  uniformly  victor- 
ious; but  she  was  the  only  conqueror  of  modern  times  who 
never  sustained  a  serious  defeat,  nor  ever  had  to  restore  an 
acquisition.  "  I  came  to  Russia  a  poor  girl,"  she  once  said, 
"  and  Russia  has  dowered  me  richly.  But  I  have  paid  her 
back  with  Azof,  the  Crimea,  and  the  Ukraine." 

The  too  visible  arrest  or  rather  decline  of  the  well-being  of 
her  empire,  toward  the  middle  of  her  long  career,  must  have 
taught  so  acute  a  mind  a  sound  lesson.  But  by  this  time  she 
had  become  the  victim  of  circumstances:  and  more  than  this, 
the  vassal  of  other  spirits  far  meaner  than  her  own.  It  is 
strange  to  trace  the  Nemesis  of  outraged  womanhood  in  this 
last  trait  of  her  character.  She,  the  most  masculine  of  her 
sex,  was  subject  equally  with  the  weakest  to  what  has  been 
called  the  female  necessity  of  being  some  one's  slave.  Nor 
was  this  slavery  a  mere  consequence  of  her  grosser  failings. 
At  her  Court,  the  minion  of  the  hour  was  usually  one,  the 
permanent  ruler  another.  In  fact,  for  the  greater  part  of  her 
life  she  was  governed  by  two  men  in  succession,  neither  of 
whom  had  the  tithe  of  her  abilities,  but  who  mastered  her 
imagination  by  their  tyrannical  force  of  character:  Gregor 
Orlof  and  Potemkin.  The  first  was  not  without  nobleness 
of  disposition,  but  eccentric,  morose,  pursued  as  it  were 
through  life  by  the  furies  of  his  murdered  sovereign ;  and  ulti- 
mately insane.  He  was  the  only  man,  perhaps,  whom  she 
truly  loved. 

Potemkin,  on  the  other  hand,  as  is  well  known  (for  few 
portraits  have  been  more  characteristically  drawn,  or  by  bet- 


CATHERINE    IL,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA      237 

ter  artists),  exhibited  a  strange  mixture  of  extravagance  and 
buffoonery  with  a  good  deal  of  cunning,  and  some  real  sagac- 
ity. It  IS  difficult  to  ascertain  how  far  he  really  imposed  on 
his  doting  mistress,  and  how  far  she  consented  to  the 
imposture,  knowing  it,  but  not  daring  to  betray  her  knowl- 
edge. The  worst  results,  however,  of  the  favouritism  of  her 
latter  years,  as  regards  the  internal  management  of  her 
empire,  was  not  so  much  the  direct  interference  for  evil  of 
the  favourites  themselves,  as  that  of  the  number  of  meaner 
spirits,  favourites'  favourites,  hangers-on  of  each  minion  of 
the  time,  who  crept  by  their  means  into  place  and  power. 
This  was  especially  the  case  under  the  reign  of  Potemkin. 

Death  surprised  her,  after  thirty-four  years  of  constant 
successes,  still  planning  further  schemes  of  aggression  and 
aggrandisement — designing  to  trample  out  both  the  Mussul- 
man and  the  Jacobin;  with  Constantinople,  Paris,  Teheran, 
and  Stockholm,  full  in  view,  as  the  objects  no  longer  to 
appearance  remote,  of  her  daring  ambition.  But  the  loftier 
purposes  of  her  youth,  her  essays  at  material  and  moral  civil- 
isation, were  not,  indeed,  abandoned ;  she  never  lost  sight  of 
them;  but  adjourned,  as  it  proved,  indefinitely.  " Avant 
la  mort  de  Catherine"  says  Masson,  ''  la  plupart  des  monu- 
ments de  son  regne  ressemblaient  deja  a  des  debris;  legisla- 
tion, colonies,  education,  institut,  fabriques,  batiments,  hopi- 
taux,  canaux,  villes,  forteresses,  tout  avait  ete  commence  et 
abandonne  avant  d'etre  acheve.**  Nor  could  it  be  said,  great 
and  popular  as  her  name  had  been  among  the  Russians,  that 
she  had  effected  any  substantial  change  in  the  national  char- 
acter; but  she  had  effectually  aroused  the  national  spirit. 


23^      CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA 

She  had  inspired  them  with  that  thorough  martial  confidence 
in  the  valour  of  their  armies  and  the  star  of  their  destiny, 
which  has  since  carried  them,  either  triumphant  or  at  least 
unbroken,  through  so  many  a  struggle.  Except  in  this  par- 
ticular, the  generation  which  saw  her  buried,  boyars  and  serfs 
alike,  was  probably  much  the  same,  in  habits,  tendencies,  and 
education,  with  that  which  had  beheld  her  mount  the  throne. 
Her  hand  was  not  equal  to  the  work  of  stripping  any  large 
portion  of  the  aged  rind  from  the  rich  fruit  within.  Her 
influence  on  her  era  was  very  great ;  but  it  was  indirect,  and 
rtiore  felt  perhaps  by  the  world  at  large  than  by  Russia  in 
particular.  Her  achievements  were  those  of  a  clear,  decisive 
intellect  and  generous  spirit,  unseduced  by  the  common  shows 
of  things,  and  unterrified  by  vulgar  dangers,  which  could 
establish  the  theory  of  monarchy  on  the  naked  utilitarian 
basis  of  the  "  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number" ;  which 
could  carry  to  the  throne,  and  practise  on  the  throne,  but  with 
prudence,  the  maxims  of  a  few  mere  thinkers,  despicable  in 
the  eyes  of  ordinary  politicians,  and  could  astonish  the  latter 
by  proving  that  neither  State  nor  Church  fell  down  in  con- 
sequence, but  seemed  to  attain  additional  security.  She  dared 
follow  to  its  results  that  fearless  optimism,  which  habitually 
assumed  the  best  respecting  men  and  their  motives,  and 
deemed  harsh  punishment  and  violent  coercion  simply  evils 
in  themselves,  unadapted  to  the  real  exigencies  of  human 
nature,  imperfect  instruments  of  which  the  use  required 
apology.  These  were  the  merits  which  gave  her  an  authority 
not  limited  by  mere  Russian  geography  in  her  own  day,  and 
which,  notwithstanding  all  that  is  on  record  against  her — 


CATHERINE    II.,    EMPRESS    OF    RUSSIA      239 

the  sins  of  her  private  life,  the  fraud  and  violence  under 
which  Poland  perished,  the  sacrifice  of  countless  multitudes 
to  the  lust  of  conquest — entitle  her  to  her  place  in  history 
amongst  that  band  of  kindred  intellects,  on  the  throne  and  in 
the  study,  who  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  made  ready  for  us 
of  the  present  day  the  world  in  which  we  dwell. 


MADAME  R]£CAMI£R 

(1777— 1849) 
NOEL   WILLIAMS 

HER  angelic  face  can  bear  no  other  name;  one  look 
suffices  to  bind  your  heart  to  her  forever."  Such 
was  the  dictum  pronounced  by  no  less  a  person  than  Lamar- 
tine  on  Madame  Recamier,  without  a  doubt  the  most  remark- 
able figure  in  Parisian  society  during  the  first  four  decades 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  idol  of  Prince  Augustus  of 
Prussia;  of  Matthieu  de  Montmorency,  of  Benjamin  Con- 
stant, and  of  Rene  Chateaubriand;  the  bosom  friend  of 
Madame  de  Stael ;  the  confidante  of  Murat,  Bernadotte,  and 
Moreau;  about  whose  charms  Lucien  Bonaparte  raved,  and 
to  whom  Wellington  made  love  in  his  bad  French.  Before 
the  throne  of  this  uncrowned  queen  of  France  kings  and 
princes,  statesmen  and  orators,  authors  and  artists,  war- 
riors and  diplomatists,  bowed  the  knee,  and  she  received 
their  homage  with  that  easy  grace  and  gentle  dignity 
which  commanded  at  once  their  respect  and  the  admi- 
ration. 

Jeanne  Frangoise  Julie  Adelaide  Bernard — ^to  write  it  in 
full,  although  she  used  only  the  third  of  her  four  Christian 
names — was  born  at  Lyons  on  the  4th  of  December,  1777. 

240 


MADAME   RECAMIER  241 

Her  father,  Jean  Bernard,  was  a  notary  of  that  city,  but 
beyond  the  fact  that  he  was  extremely  good-looking,  he  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  in  any  way  distinguished.  Her 
mother  (whose  maiden  name  was  Man  ton),  from  whom 
Julie  inherited  that  bewitching  loveliness  and  charm  of  man- 
ner which  was  to  secure  for  her  a  European  reputation,  was 
a  singularly  beautiful  and  accomplished  woman  with  an 
extraordinary  aptitude  for  business,  which  enabled  her  to 
amass  by  successful  speculation  a  nice  little  fortune,  and, 
what  according  to  Disraeli  is  far  harder  of  accomplishment, 
to  keep  it. 

In  1784,  Jean  Bernard  was  appointed  a  collector  of  cus- 
toms in  Paris,  where  he  and  his  wife  took  up  their  residence, 
and  their  little  daughter  was  placed  in  the  convent  of  La 
Deserte  at  Lyons.  When  about  ten  years  of  age  she  joined 
her  parents  in  Paris,  where  they  were  living  in  very  good 
style,  having  a  box  at  the  Theatre  Francais,  and  giving  sup- 
per-parties twice  a  week.  Even  at  that  early  age  she  seems 
to  have  been  remarkable  for  her  beauty  and  grace,  and  became 
the  pet  of  La  Harpe  and  other  literary  men  who  frequented 
the  Bernards'  house;  and  to  this  fact  may  be  attributed  her 
taste  for  literary  society,  to  which  she  is  in  no  small  degree 
indebted  for  her  lasting  celebrity.  Her  mother,  who  seems 
to  have  attached  an  extraordinary  importance  to  the  power 
of  personal  attraction,  compelled  the  poor  child  to  spend  many 
weary  hours  at  her  toilet-table,  and  allowed  no  opportunity  to 
slip  of  exhibiting  her  little  daughter's  budding  charms  to  the 
admiring  eyes  of  the  Parisians.  Although  Madame  Bernard 
paid  so  much  attention  to  her  child's  personal  appearance,  she 


242  MADAME  R^CAMIER 

by  no  means  neglected  her  education,  and,  indeed,  supervised 
her  education  with  the  greatest  care.  Juliette  had  the  advan- 
tage of  studying  under  the  best  masters,  and  became  an 
excellent  musician  and  graceful  dancer. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen  Juliette  received  an  offer  of  marriage. 
Her  suitor  was  a  wealthy  Paris  banker  named  Jacques 
Recamier,  a  handsome,  pleasure-loving  man  of  forty-three, 
generous  to  a  fault,  and,  at  the  same  time,  oddly  enough, 
utterly  without  feeling.  The  wedding  took  place  in  April, 
1793;  scarcely  a  time,  one  would  have  supposed,  for  marry- 
ing or  giving  in  marriage.  The  Reign  of  Terror  was  at  its 
height;  all  society  was  broken  up  and  scattered  to  the  four 
winds  of  heaven,  and  all  family  ties  annihilated. 

The  first  four  years  of  Juliette's  married  life  were,  there- 
fore, of  necessity  spent  in  comparative  seclusion,  during  which 
her  beauty  fully  developed,  and  she  passed  from  childhood 
into  all  the  splendour  of  youth.  The  following  description 
from  the  pen  of  Madame  Lenormant,  of  her  appearance  at 
this  time,  does  not  seem,  even  after  making  all  due  allow- 
ance for  the  fact  that  the  writer  was  both  her  niece  and 
most  enthusiastic  admirer,  to  be  in  any  way  an  exaggerated 
one: 

"  A  figure  flexible  and  elegant ;  a  well-poised  head ;  throat 
and  shoulders  of  admirable  form  and  proportions;  beautiful 
arms,  though  somewhat  small;  a  little,  rosy  mouth;  black 
hair  that  curled  naturally;  a  delicate  and  regular  nose,  but 
bien-franqais;  an  incomparable  brilliancy  of  complexion;  a 
frank,  arch  face,  rendered  irresistibly  lovely  from  its  expres- 
sion of  goodness;  a  carriage  slightly  indicative  of  both  indo- 


MADAME   RECAMIER  243 

lence  and  pride,  so  that  to  her  might  be  applied  Saint-Simon's 
compliment  to  the  Duchess  of  Burgundy — 

"  'Her  step  was  like  that  of  a  goddess  on  clouds.'  ^ 

Such  was  Madame  Recamler  at  eighteen. 

After  the  Terror  was  over,  in  the  day  of  order  and  recon- 
struction, Madame  Recamier  soon  became  a  notable  figure  in 
the  somewhat  mixed  society  which  had  taken  the  place  of  the 
old  aristocracy,  and  was  throwing  itself  with  a  zest  sharpened 
by  the  privations  of  terror,  war,  and  famine  into  a  vortex  of 
pleasure.  Her  presence  at  any  of  its  gatherings  was  looked 
upon  as  an  event  of  no  small  importance,  and  wherever  she 
went  her  loveliness  called  forth  murmurs  of  curiosity  and 
admiration.  Among  the  earliest  to  pay  tribute  to  her  charms 
were  Napoleon  Bonaparte  himself  and  his  brother  Lucien. 

The  friendship  of  Lucien  Bonaparte  was  a  privilege  with 
which  Madame  Recamier  could  very  well  have  dispensed. 
He  began  by  bombarding  her  with  a  series  of  billets-doux 
couched  in  the  most  grandiloquent  language,  assuming  the 
name  of  Romeo  because  hers  was  Juliette.  He  must  have 
felt  extremely  foolish  when  the  object  of  his  devotion  handed 
him  back  his  first  love-letter  in  the  presence  of  a  number  of 
mutual  friends,  praising  the  talents  of  the  writer,  but  advising 
him  not  to  waste  in  "  works  of  imagination,"  the  time  which 
he  might  more  profitably  devote  to  politics.  However,  he 
was  not  the  man  to  be  discouraged  by  the  want  of  success 
which  had  attended  his  romantic  epistles,  and  so  abandoning 
his  nom-de-guerre,  he  wrote  Madame  Recamier  letters  the 
purport  of  which  she  could  not  pretend  to  misunderstand. 


244  MADAME  RECAMIER 

These  she  showed  to  her  husband  and  proposed  to  forbid 
Lucien  the  house.  But  Recamler  represented  to  her  that 
to  quarrel  openly  with  the  brother  of  General  Bonaparte 
would  undoubtedly  compromise  him,  and  probably  jeopardise 
his  business,  and  advised  her  not  to  repulse  Romeo  too 
harshly. 

Jacques  Recamier's  position  as  a  wealthy  banker  gave  him 
in  those  days  a  position  which  he  could  not  have  occupied 
under  the  ancient  monarchy,  and  his  wife's  renown  as  a 
beauty,  and  the  fact  that  her  salon  was  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
neutral  ground  where  all  parties  might  meet,  added  to  the 
popularity  of  the  house,  and  their  hotel  in  the  Chaussee 
d'Antin,  then  the  Rue  du  Mont  Blanc,  in  the  furnishing  of 
which  Berthaut,  the  architect,  had  been  allowed  carte- 
blanches  became  the  rendez-vous  for  all  that  was  most  dis- 
tinguished in  political,  artistic,  and  literary  circles.  Thither 
came  Eugene  Beauharnais  and  Fouche,  Adrien  and  Matthieu 
de  Montmorency,  Murat,  Bernadotte,  Massena  and  Moreau, 
Camille  Jourdan  and  Narbonne,  La  Harpe,  Legouve  and 
Emmanuel  Dupattey,  and  last,  but  by  no  means  least, 
Madame  de  Stael.  A  business  transaction,  the  purchase  of 
this  very  house  in  the  Rue  du  Mont  Blanc,  which  had  for- 
merly belonged  to  Necker,  Madame  de  Stael's  father,  was 
the  means  of  bringing  these  two  celebrated  women  together. 

The  first  eight  years  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  may  be 
regarded  as  the  period  of  Madame  Recamier's  reign  as  Queen 
of  Parisian  society.  Her  husband's  banking-house  had  now 
become  one  of  the  wealthiest  in  France,  and  she  had  only  to 
express  a  wish  to  see  it  immediately  gratified,  so  that  at  their 


MADAME  R]^CAMIER  245 

country-seat  at  Clichy,  and  at  their  house  in  the  Rue  du  Mont 
Blanc,  she  was  enabled  to  entertain  in  regal  style  all  the  most 
distinguished  people  in  Paris.  Juliette  was  now  in  the 
zenith  of  her  beauty  and  popularity. 

Unfortunately  for  Madame  Recamier  there  was  one  person 
who  regarded  the  popularity  of  her  receptions  with  no 
friendly  eye.  This  was  Bonaparte,  who  had  established  him- 
self at  the  Tuileries,  where  he  had  lived  in  a  splendour  which 
bade  fair  to  rival  that  of  the  ancient  regime ^  while  his  family 
affected  something  of  the  dignity  of  royalty.  He  had  wished 
to  attach  the  new  beauty  to  his  Court,  but  Madame  Recamier, 
who  valued  her  independence,  had  refused,  and  as  Bonaparte 
could  not  bear  the  idea  of  a  society  which  did  not  derive  all 
its  eclat  from  him,  he  actually  seems  in  time  to  have  come  to 
regard  her  with  the  hatred  of  a  rival.  Moreover,  he  was 
fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  the  salons  of  Paris  were  distinctly 
hostile  to  his  government,  and  that  at  receptions  like  those 
of  Madame  Recamier  and  Madame  de  Stael,  his  ambitious 
schemes  were  wont  to  be  discussed  and  treated  with  scant 
respect.  He  could  not,  of  course,  prevent  this  except  by 
resorting  to  extreme  measures,  and  these  he  finally  took.  In 
1803,  Madame  de  Stael,  of  whose  intellectual  powers  he 
seems  to  have  been  as  jealous  as  Louis  XIV.  was  of  those  of 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  was  banished  from  Paris,  and  forbidden 
to  approach  within  forty  leagues  of  the  capital;  and  five 
years  later,  after  the  publication  of  her  book  De  UAlle- 
magne^  she  was  expelled  from  France  altogether. 

In  his  dealings  with  the  first  beauty  in  France,  Napoleon 
showed  himself  as  harsh  and  tyrannical  as  he  had  been  to  the 


24^  MADAME  RECAMIER 

first  wit.  He  made  another  attempt  to  undermine  Madame 
Recamier's  social  influence,  and  to  this  end  commissioned 
the  astute  Fouche  to  offer  her  the  post  of  a  dame  du  palais, 
the  acceptance  of  which  would,  of  course,  have  necessitated 
the  closing  of  her  salon,  but  the  honour  was  respectfully  yet 
firmly  declined.  Madame  Recamier  was  soon  to  learn  what 
this  refusal  should  cost  her.  In  1806,  her  husband's  banking- 
house  became  involved  in  a  series  of  misfortunes,  brought 
about  by  the  financial  panic  in  Spain.  A  comparatively 
small  sum — a  million  francs  (£40,000) — ^would  have 
enabled  him  to  tide  over  his  difficulties,  but  when  he  applied 
to  the  Bank  of  France  for  a  loan  to  this  amount,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  he  had  ample  security  to  offer,  and  the 
bank  had  lately  shown  itself  desirous  of  doing  everything  in 
its  power  to  re-establish  public  credit,  his  application  was 
instantly  and  harshly  refused.  The  consequence  was  that 
Recamier's  bank  was  compelled  to  close  its  doors,  and  Juliette 
and  her  husband  found  themselves  suddenly  reduced  from 
affluence  to  comparative  poverty.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Bonaparte,  who  manipulated  banks  and  bourses  as  read- 
ily as  he  did  armies  and  navies,  was  responsible  for  this  other- 
wise unaccountable  action  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  of 
the  Bank  of  France. 

Madame  Recamier,  aware  that  she  herself  was  indirectly 
the  cause  of  her  husband's  failure,  bore  this  reversal  of  for- 
tune without  a  murmur.  The  house  in  the  Rue  du  Mont 
Blanc  and  the  chateau  at  Clichy  were  immediately  put  up  for 
sale,  and  while  her  husband  voluntarily  resigned  all  his  per- 
sonal possessions  to  his  creditors,  she  disposed  of  her  jewellery 


MADAME   RECAMIER  247 

to  the  very  last  trinket.  The  sympathy  felt  for  her  was 
universal  ("  It  could  not  have  been  greater  if  she  had  been 
the  widow  of  a  marshal  of  France  slain  on  the  field  of  battle," 
Bonaparte  angrily  remarked),  and  she  became,  if  possible,  an 
even  greater  object  of  admiration  than  she  had  been  in  the 
days  of  her  prosperity.  Unfortunately  money  made  all  the 
difference,  and  without  money,  Madame  Recamier,  although 
she  might  retain  her  friends,  could  no  longer  continue  to  lead 
society. 

It  is  perhaps  a  little  difficult  to  understand  at  first  in  what 
lay  the  peculiar  charm  of  Madame  Recamier.  She  was  beau- 
tiful, we  know,  but  many  other  women  have  been  as  beautiful, 
and  yet  have  not  succeeded  in  arousing  anything  which  can 
be  compared  to  the  admiration  and  devotion  which  Madame 
Recamier  commanded  throughout  her  career.  The  secret 
is  probably  to  be  found  in  her  charm  of  manner,  her  perfect 
ease  and  grace  in  conversation,  and  her  extraordinary  tact, 
which  enabled  her  to  fill  her  salon  with  people  of  every  shade 
and  variety  of  opinion,  and  every  class  and  rank  in  society, 
and  yet  so  to  contrive  that  every  one  there,  whether  Catholic 
or  Agnostic,  whether  Bonapartist  or  Legitimist,  whether 
prince  of  the  blood,  or  struggling  litterateur,  should  be  made 
to  feel  perfectly  at  his  ease.  It  is,  indeed,  to  her  wonderful 
tact,  and  to  her  still  more  wonderful  power  of  sympathising 
with  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  others,  quite  as  much  as  to 
her  beauty  of  face  and  form,  that  Juliette  Recamier  is 
indebted  for  her  place  among  the  most  celebrated  women  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century. 


ELIZABETH  CROMWELL  CLAYPOLE 

(1629 — 1658) 
MARK   NOBLE 

ELIZABETH  the  second,  and  favourite  daughter  of 
the  protector,  Oliver,  was  christened  July  2,  1629, 
at  St.  John's  church,  in  Huntingdon;  she  was  married, 
before  her  father's  elevation,  to  John  Claypole,  Esq.,  after- 
wards master  of  horse  to  the  Protectors,  Oliver  and 
Richard. 

This  lady  had  the  elevation  of  mind  and  dignity  of  deport- 
ment of  one  born  of  a  royal  stem,  with  all  the  aif ability  and 
goodness  of  the  most  humble;  such  a  character  as  this 
deserved,  and  has,  I  believe,  escaped  even  the  ridicule  so  liber- 
ally thrown  upon  all  of  every  party,  during  this  unhappy  war, 
one  writer  only  excepted.* 

Mr.  Thyer  has  explained  the  meaning  of  this  in  a  note: 
"  In  the  rustic  ceremony  of  a  Whitesun-ale,  besides  a  mock 

*  Butler,  in  his  posthumous  works,  has  ridiculed  Mrs.  Claypole, 
with  the  rest  of  the  Cromwell  family  in  these  lines: 
"Yet  old  Queen  Madge, 
Though  things  do  not  fadgc, 

Will  serve  to  be  Queen  of  the  May-pole; 
Two   princes  of  Wales, 
For  Whitsun-ales, 
And  her  Grace  Maid  Marian  Claypole." 
248 


ELIZABETH    CROMWELL   CLAYPOLE. 


ELIZABETH    CROMWELL    CLAYPOLE  249 

king,  queen,  etc.,  there  Is  always  a  maid-marlon,  which  is,  a 
young  woman,  or  a  boy  dressed  in  woman's  cloaths,  whose 
business  It  Is  to  dance  the  moresco,  or  morlce  dance."  This 
must  have  been  written  in  the  lifetime  of  Oliver,  as  Mrs. 
Claypole  Is  mentioned  in  It. 

Happiness  is  not  sometimes  the  lot  of  the  best;  It  pleased 
Providence  to  afflict  her  with  the  most  severe  disorder,  with 
the  loss  of  a  dear  child ;  besides  which,  the  dislike  she  had  to 
her  father's  conduct,  and  her  sincere  wishes  to  see  the  lawful 
heir  to  the  Crown  restored  to  his  rights,  all  conspired  to  dis- 
tress a  mind  the  most  feeling,  and  then  oppressed  with  the 
most  acute  pains:  unable  to  struggle  against  so  many  trials, 
she  gave  way  to  fate,  August  6,  1658. 

What  is  also  generally  allowed  to  have  at  least  hastened  her 
end  was  the  death  of  Doctor  Hewitt,  who,  with  Sir  Henry 
Sllngsby,  lost  his  head  upon  the  scaffold,  for  endeavouring  to 
effect  a  revolution  in  favour  of  the  exiled  prince.* 

*  Dr.  Hewitt  was  tried  May  25,  1658,  by  the  high  court  of  justice, 
which,  as  he  denied  its  jurisdiction,  as  an  unlawful  court  and 
established  by  a  more  unlawful  power,  condemned  him  to  death. 
Whitlock  says,  the  doctor  carried  himself  impudently;  this  the 
author  of  the  history  of  England  during  the  reigns  of  the  Stuarts, 
in  pretending  to  copy,  says,  this  unfortunate  divine  "  carried  himself 
imprudently";  but  is  this  impartiality  and  candour?  Probably 
Whitlock  alludes  to  the  doctor's  boldly  saying,  that  he  would  plead 
if  either  of  the  judges,  or  the  learned  counsel  at  law,  would  give  it 
under  their  hands,  that  the  high  court  of  justice  was  a  lawful 
judicatory.  It  is  certain,  that  the  doctor's  denying  the  jurisdiction 
by  which  he  was  tried,  lost  him  his  life;  as  the  Protector  thought 
it  was  striking  at  the  very  life  of  his  government;  at  least,  with  his 
obstinate  silence  of  the  part  he  had  acted  in  the  plot,  which,  as  the 
Protector  well  knew,  he  insisted  upon  the  doctor's  confessing  it; 
had   he    done   this,    and   been   silent   about   the   jurisdiction   of   the 


250  ELIZABETH    CROMWELL    CLAYPOLE 

The  former  of  these  unfortunate  gentlemen  was  partic- 
ularly beloved  by  Mrs.  Claypole,  and  whose  house  she  fre- 
quented to  hear  divine  worship,  according  to  the  Church  of 
England ;  she  therefore  importuned  his  pardon  with  the  great- 
est earnestness,  and  requested  it  upon  her  knees;  but  her 
father  (who  seldom  denied  her  any  request)  utterly  refused 
her  this,  which  is  supposed  to  have  given  her  spirits  a  prodigi- 
ous shock.* 

It  is  allowed  by  our  historians,  that  in  the  repeated  con- 
ferences she  had  with  Oliver  just  before  her  death,  she  painted 
the  guilt  of  his  ambition  in  the  most  dreadful  colours;  which, 
says  Lord  Clarendon,  exceedingly  perplexed  him;  and 
observes,  that  he  took  much  pains  to  prevent  any  of  his  attend- 
ants hearing,  yet  many  expressions  escaped  her  which  were 
heard  by  those  near  her,  respecting  cruelty  and  blood;  and 
she  was  particular  in  mentioning  the  death,  say  they,  of  her 
pious  pastor;  the  near  approach  of  her  dissolution  giving  her, 
she  supposed,  liberty  to  say  what  formerly  she  thought,  yet 
durst  not  then  express. 

"  Such  a  remonstrance,"  says  Mr.  Grainger,  "  from  a 
beloved  child,  in  so  affecting  a  situation,  must  have  sunk  deep 

court,  he  would  have  been  pardoned,  as  Oliver  declared  to  Doctor 
Manton.  It  is  an  argument  of  the  unfortunate  divine's  goodness, 
that  those  excellent  ladies,  Mrs.  Claypole  and  Lady  Falconberg, 
were  strenuous  for  his  pardon,  and  that  Prynne  pleaded  as  his 
counsel. 

*  It  may  reasonably  be  supposed  that  Doctor  Hewitt's  death  was 
sensibly  felt  by  Mrs.  Claypole;  but  it  appears  that  she  rejoiced  in 
the  discovery  of  that  plot  for  which  he  died  so  that,  probably,  her 
excess  of  grief  is  somewhat  heightened,  occasioned  by  her  dying 
soon  after. 


ELIZABETH    CROMWELL    CLAYPOLE  251 

into  his  mind;  it  was  strongly  suspected  that  his  conscience 
took  the  alarm,  and  was  never  afterwards  at  rest  from  that 
moment;"  and  to  this  both  Lord  Clarendon  and  Ludlow 
agree;  the  former  says,  that  though  he  (Cromwell)  did  not 
show  any  remorse,  it  is  very  certain,  that  "  either  what  she 
said,  or  her  death,  affected  him  wonderfully  " ;  and  the  latter, 
that  after  Mrs.  Claypole's  death,  "  it  was  observed,  that 
Cromwell  grew  melancholy." 

This  amiable  lady  died  at  Hampton  Court,  amidst  the 
prayers  of  all  for  her  recovery,  and  her  loss  was  lamented  by 
the  whole  court,  but  particularly  by  her  husband  and  father. 

No  respect  whatever  was  omitted  that  could  be  paid  to  her 
memory ;  the  Protector  ordered  the  body  to  be  removed  from 
the  palace  in  which  she  died,  to  the  painted  chamber  in 
Westminster,  where  it  lay  in  state  some  time,  and  from 
thence  was  conveyed,  in  the  night  of  the  loth  of  August,  in 
great  funeral  pomp,  to  the  dormitory  of  the  English  Kings, 
where  it  was  deposited  in  a  vault  made  purposely  to  receive 
it:  Mrs.  Wilkes,  the  deceased's  aunt,  walked  as  chief  mourner. 

This  excellent  lady  was,  it  is  said,  a  warm  partisan  for 
King  Charles  L  as  well  as  for  King  Charles  IL  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  she  constantly  used  all  her  influence  in  behalf 
of  any  who  fell  into  misfortunes  on  account  of  their  loyalty ; 
indeed,  all  that  were  in  distress  partook  of  her  bounty,  which, 
with  her  munificence,  rendered  the  very  large  allowance  the 
Protector  settled  upon  her  inadequate. 

The  faithful  Whitlock  gives  her  this  amiable  character, 
and  he  must  have  known  her  well :  "  She  was  a  lady  of 
excellent  parts,  dear  to  her  parents,  and  civil  to  all  personS| 


252         ELIZABETH   CROMWELL   CLAYPOLE 

and  courteous  and  friendly  to  all  gentlemen  of  her  acquaint- 
ance ;  her  death  did  much  grieve  her  father."  * 

There  is  a  medal  in  silver  of  the  Lady  Elizabeth,  which  on 
one  side  exhibits  her  bust,  but  without  any  inscription;  it 
shows  the  profile  of  a  very  handsome  woman,  with  a  com- 
manding, yet  obliging  countenance,  such  as  bespeaks  a  great 

*It  may  not  be  improper  here  to  give  what  Carrington  has  said 
of  Mrs.  Claypole.  After  speaking  of  the  joy  the  conquest  of  Dun- 
kirk occasioned,  he  subjoins,  *'  that  the  laurels  faded,  and  the  joys 
abated  by  the  interposing  of  the  cypress-tree,  which  death  planted 
upon  the  tomb  of  the  illustrious  and  most  generous  Lady  Claypole, 
second  daughter  to  his  late  highness,  who  departed  this  life  to  a 
more  glorious  and  eternal  one,  on  the  sixth  day  of  August,  this 
present  year:  a  fatal  prognostication  of  a  more  sensible  ensuing 
loss.  For  even  as  branches  of  trees,  being  cut  and  lopped  in  an 
ill-season,  do  first  draw  away  the  sap  from  the  tree,  and  afterwards 
cause  the  body  thereof  to  draw  up  and  die;  in  like  manner,  during 
the  declining  age  of  his  late  highness,  an  ill  season  in  which  men 
usually  do,  as  it  were,  reap  all  their  consolation  from  the  youth 
and  vigour  of  their  children,  wherein  they  seem  to  go  to  ruin  by 
degrees  as  they  draw  near  to  their  death,  it  unfortunately  fell  out, 
that  this  most  illustrious  daughter,  the  true  representative  and  lively 
image  of  her  father,  the  joy  of  his  heart,  the  delight  of  his  eyes, 
and  the  dispenser  of  his  clemency  and  benignity,  died  in  the  flower 
of  her  age,  which  struck  more  to  his  heart  than  all  the  heavy 
burden  of  his  affairs,  which  were  only  as  a  pleasure  and  pastime 
to  his  great  soul.  So  great  a  power  hath  nature  over  the  disposi- 
tions of  generous  men,  when  the  tie  of  blood  is  seconded  by  love 
and  virtue.  This  generous  and  noble  Lady  Elizabeth,  therefore, 
departed  this  world,  in  despite  of  all  the  skill  of  physicians,  the 
prayers  of  those  afflicted  persons  whom  she  had  relieved,  and  the 
vows  of  all  kinds  of  artists  whom  she  cherished;  but  she  died  an 
amazonian-like  death,  despising  the  pomps  of  the  earth,  and  with- 
out any  grief,  save  to  leave  an  afflicted  father,  perplexed  at  her  so 
sudden  being  taken  away;  she  died  with  those  good  lessons  in  her 
mouth,  which  she  had  practised  whilst  she  lived.  And  if  there  be 
any  comfort  left  us  in  her  death,  it  is  in  the  hope  we  have  that  her 


ELIZABETH    CROMWELL   CLAYPOLE         253 

and  affable  person;  it  is  highly  relieved,  and  in  a  fine  taste; 
the  medal  is  become  very  scarce,  and  has  for  that  reason  been 
lately  restored.  Mr.  Theobald,  in  1728,  showed  the  Society 
of  Antiquaries  a  medal  in  gold  of  hers,  modelled  by  Abraham 
and  finished  by  Thomas  Simons,  v^^hose  initials  were  over  it.* 

good  example  will  raise  up  the  like  inclination  in  the  remainder 
of  her  sisters,  whom  heaven  hath  yet  left  us.  I  shall  not  at  all 
speak  of  her  funeral,  for  if  I  might  have  been  credited,  all  the 
Muses  and  their  god  Apollo  should  have  made  her  an  epicedium, 
and  should  have  appeared  in  mourning,  which  should  have  reached 
from  the  top  of  their  Mount  Parnassus  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley 
thereof."  He  adds  that,  "  if  this  great  personage's  death  received 
not  the  funeral  rites  which  all  great  wits  were  bound  to  pay  it,  the 
martial  men  did  evidence  that  the  neglect  did  not  lie  at  their 
doors,  in  revenge  for  the  loss  of  their  English  Pallas,  and  of  their 
Jupiter's  daughter."  This  is,  indeed,  hyperbolical,  but  the  truth  is 
easily  traced  in  the  panegyric. 

*Snelling's   engravings  of   medals,   and   Virtue's   engravings  of 
the  works  of  Simons. 


ISABELLA    D'ESTE 

(1474—1539) 
JULIA    CARTWRIGHT 

THE  history  of  these  two  princesses  (Isabella  and 
Beatrice  d'Este)  was  closely  interwoven  during  the 
early  years  of  their  wedded  life,  and  Isabella's  visits  to  Milan, 
and  her  correspondence  with  Lodovico  Sforza  and  his  young 
wife  naturally  filled  a  large  share  of  her  time  and  thoughts. 
But  these  six  brilliant  years  which  made  up  the  whole  of 
Beatrice's  married  life  formed  only  a  brief  episode  in  Isabella's 
long  and  eventful  career.  During  the  next  forty  years  she 
played  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  her  times,  and 
made  the  little  Court  of  Mantua  famous  in  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  civilised  world.  Her  close  relationship  with  the  reign- 
ing, families  of  Milan  and  Naples,  of  Ferrara  and  Urbino, 
and  constant  intercourse  with  Popes  and  monarchs  made  her 
position  one  of  peculiar  importance,  while  the  wisdom  and 
sagacity  which  she  showed  in  political  affairs  commanded 
universal  respect.  Both  during  the  lifetime  of  her  husband 
and  son  she  was  repeatedly  called  upon  to  administer  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  state,  and  showed  a  coolness  and  dexterity 
in  the  conduct  of  the  most  difficult  negotiations  that  would 
have  excited  the  admiration  of  Machiavelli  himself.  By  her 
skilful  diplomacy  this  able  woman  saved  the  little  state  of 

254 


ISABELLA    D  ESTE. 


ISABELLA  D'ESTE  255 

Mantua  from  falling  a  prey  to  the  ambitious  designs  of 
Caesar  Borgia,  or  the  vengeance  of  two  powerful  French 
monarchs,  Louis  XIL  and  Francis  L  At  the  same  time  she 
helped  her  brother,  Duke  Alfonso  of  Ferrara,  to  resist  the 
furious  assaults  of  Julius  IL  and  the  tortuous  policy  of  Leo 
X.,  and  to  preserve  his  duchy  in  the  face  of  the  most  pro- 
longed and  determined  opposition.  Isabella  lived  to  see  the 
fulfilment  of  her  fondest  wish,  when,  in  1531,  the  newly- 
crowned  Emperor,  Charles  V.,  visited  Mantua  and  raised 
her  eldest  son  to  the  rank  of  a  Duke,  while  Pope  Clement 
VIL  bestowed  a  Cardinal's  hat  on  her  second  son,  Ercolc. 

But  it  is  above  all  as  a  patron  of  art  and  letters  that  Isabella 
d'Este  will  be  remembered.  In  this  respect  she  deserves  a 
place  with  the  most  enlightened  princes  of  the  Renaissance, 
with  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Ludovico  Sforza.  A  true  child 
of  her  age,  Isabella  combined  a  passionate  love  of  beauty  and 
the  most  profound  reverence  for  antiquity  with  the  finest 
critical  taste.  Her  studios  and  villas  were  adorned  with 
the  best  paintings  and  statues  by  the  first  masters  of  the  day, 
and  with  the  rarest  antiques  from  the  Eternal  City  and  the 
Isles  of  Greece.  Her  book-shelves  contained  the  daintiest 
editions  of  classical  works  printed  at  the  Aldine  Press,  and 
the  newest  poems  and  romances  by  living  writers.  Viols  and 
organs  of  exquisite  shape  and  tone,  lutes  of  inlaid  ivory  and 
ebony,  the  richest  brocades  and  rarest  gems,  the  finest  gold 
and  silver-work,  the  choicest  majolica  and  the  most  delicately 
tinted  Murano  glass  found  a  place  in  her  camerinu  But 
everything  that  she  possessed  must  be  of  the  best,  and  she 
was  satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  perfection.     Even  Man- 


256  ISABELLA   D'ESTE 

tegna  and  Perugino  sometimes  failed  to  please  her,  and  Aldo's 
books  were  returned  to  be  more  carefully  revised  and  printed. 
To  attain  these  objects  Isabella  spared  neither  time  nor 
trouble.  She  wrote  endless  letters,  and  gave  the  artists  in 
her  employment  the  most  elaborate  and  minute  instructions. 
Braghirolli  counted  as  many  as  forty  letters  on  the  subject 
of  a  single  picture  painted  by  Giovanni  Bellini,  and  no  less 
than  fifty-three  on  a  painting  entrusted  to  Perugino. 

If  Isabella  was  a  fastidious  and  at  times  a  severe  critic, 
she  was  also  a  generous  and  kindly  patron,  prompt  to  recog- 
nise true  merit  and  stimulate  creative  effort,  and  ever  ready 
to  befriend  struggling  artists.  And  poets  and  painters  alike 
gave  her  freely  of  their  best,  Castiglione  and  Niccolo  da 
Correggio,  Bembo  and  Bibbiena,  were  among  her  constant 
correspondents.  Aldo  Manuzio  printed  Virgils  and  Petrarchs 
for  her  use,  Lorenzo  da  Pavia  made  her  musical  instruments 
of  unrivalled  beauty  and  sweetness.  The  works  of  Mantegna 
and  Costa,  of  Giovanni  Bellini  and  Michelangelo,  of  Peru- 
gino and  Correggio,  adorned  her  rooms.  Giovanni  Santi, 
Andrea  Mantegna,  Francesco  Francia,  and  Lorenzo  Costa 
all  in  turn  painted  portraits  of  her,  which  have,  alas !  perished. 
But  her  beautiful  features  still  live  in  Leonardo's  perfect 
drawing,  in  Cristoforo's  medals,  and  in  Titian's  great  picture 
in  Vienna.  Nor  were  poets  and  prose-writers  remiss  in 
paying  her  their  homage.  Paolo  Giovio  addressed  her  as 
the  rarest  of  women;  Bembo  and  Trissino  celebrated  her 
charms  and  virtues  in  their  sonnets  and  canzoni.  Castiglione 
gave  her  a  high  place  in  his  courtly  record,  Ariosto  paid  her  a 
magnificent  tribute  in  his  Orlando,  while  endless  were  the 


ISABELLA  D*ESTE  257 

songs  and  lays  which  minor  bards  offered  at  the  shrine  of  this 
peerless  Marchesa,  whom  they  justly  called  the  foremost 
lady  in  the  world — "  la  prima  donna  del  mondo  " — "  Isabella 
d'Este,"  writes  Jacopo  Caviceo,  "at  the  sound  of  whose 
name  all  the  Muses  rise  and  do  reverence." 

In  her  aims  and  aspirations,  Isabella  was  a  typical  child 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  her  thoughts  and  actions  faithfully 
reflected  the  best  traditions  of  the  age.  Her  own  conduct 
was  blameless.  As  a  wife  and  mother,  as  a  daughter  and 
sister,  she  was  beyond  reproach.  But  her  judgments  con- 
formed to  the  standard  of  her  own  times,  and  her  diplomacy 
followed  the  principles  of  Machiavelli  and  of  Marino  Sanuto. 
She  had  a  strong  sense  of  family  affections,  and  would  have 
risked  her  life  for  the  sake  of  advancing  the  interests  of  her 
husband  and  children  or  brothers,  but  she  did  not  hesitate  to 
ask  Caesar  Borgia  for  the  statues  of  which  he  had  robbed  her 
brother-in-law,  and  danced  merrily  at  the  ball  given  by  Louis 
XII.,  while  her  old  friend  and  kinsman,  Duke  Ludovico, 
languished  in  the  dungeons  of  Loches.  Like  others  of  her 
age  she  knew  no  regrets  and  felt  no  remorse,  but  lived  wholly 
in  the  present,  throwing  herself  with  all  the  might  of  her 
strong  vitality  into  the  business  or  enjoyment  of  the  hour, 
forgetful  of  the  past  and  careless  of  the  future. 

Fortunate  in  the  time  of  her  birth  and  in  the  circumstances 
of  her  life,  Isabella  was  above  all  fortunate  in  this,  that  she 
saw  the  finest  works  of  the  Renaissance  in  the  prime  of  their 
beauty.  She  knew  Venice  and  Milan  in  their  most  trium- 
phant hour,  when  the  glowing  hues  of  Titian  and  Giorgione's 
frescoes,  of  Leonardo  and  Gian  Bellini's  paintings  were  fresh 


258  ISABELLA  D'ESTE 

upon  the  walls.  She  visited  the  famous  palace  of  Urbino  in 
the  days  of  the  good  old  Duke  Guldobaldo,  when  young 
Raphael  was  painting  his  first  pictures,  and  Bembo  and  Cas- 
tiglione  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  gentle  Duchess  Elisabetta.  She 
came  to  Florence  when  Leonardo  and  Michelangelo  were 
working  side  by  side  at  their  cartoons  in  the  Council  Hall, 
and  she  was  the  guest  of  Leo  X.,  and  saw  the  wonders  of  the 
Sistina  and  of  Raphael's  Stanze,  before  the  fair  halls  of  the 
Vatican  had  been  defaced  by  barbarian  invaders. 

Many  and  sad  were  the  changes  that  she  witnessed  in  the 
course  of  her  long  life.  She  saw  the  first  "  invasion  of  the 
stranger,  and  all  Italy  in  flame  and  fire,"  as  her  own  Ferrara 
poet  sang  in  words  of  passionate  lament.  She  saw  Naples 
torn  from  the  house  of  Aragon,  the  fair  Milanese,  where  the 
Moro  and  Beatrice  had  reigned  in  their  pride,  lost  in  a  single 
day.  She  saw  Urbino  conquered  twice  over  and  her  own  kith 
and  kin  driven  into  exile,  first  by  the  treacherous  Borgia,  then 
by  a  Medici  Pope,  who  was  bound  to  the  reigning  house  by 
the  closest  ties  of  friendship  and  gratitude.  And  In  1527 
she  found  herself  an  unwilling  witness  of  the  nameless  hor- 
rors that  attended  the  siege  and  sack  of  Rome.  Three  years 
later  she  was  present  at  the  Emperor  Charles  V.'s  coronation 
at  Bologna,  and  took  an  active  part  In  the  splendid  ceremonies 
that  marked  the  loss  of  Italian  independence  and  the  close  of 
this  great  period.  But  to  the  last  Isabella  retained  the  same 
delight  in  beauty,  the  same  keen  sense  of  enjoyment.  She 
advanced  in  years  without  ever  growing  old,  and  In  the  last 
months  of  her  life,  one  of  the  foremost  scholars  of  the  age, 
Cardinal  Bembo,  pronounced  her  to  be  the  wisest  and  most 


ISABELLA   D'ESTE  259 

fortunate  of  woman.  The  treasures  of  art  and  learning 
which  she  had  collected  were  sold  by  her  descendants  to  for- 
eign princes,  or  destroyed  when  the  Germans  sacked  Mantua, 
ninety  years  after  her  death,  and  the  ruin  of  her  favourite 
palaces  and  villas  was  completed  by  the  French  invaders  of 
1797,  who  did  not  even  spare  the  tomb  which  held  her  ashes. 
But  Isabella  herself  will  be  long  remembered  as  the  fairest 
and  most  perfect  flower  of  womanhood  which  blossomed 
under  the  sunny  skies  of  Virgil's  land,  in  the  immortal  days 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance. 


LA    DUCHESSE     DE     BERRI 

(1798—1870) 
A.    E.    CHALLICE 

LOUIS  XVIII.  was  again  brought  to  Paris  after 
^the  Battle  of  Waterloo,  but  he  became  more  than 
ever  sensible  that  his  own  health  was  falling  fast,  and  that 
from  his  much-loved  and  devoted  niece,  the  Duchesse 
Angouleme,  who  had  then  been  married  sixteen  years,  he 
could  scarcely  hope  for  a  continuation  of  his  race.  And, 
therefore,  it  came  to  pass  that  a  marriage  was  immediately 
projected  between  the  Due  de  Berri,  the  younger  and  more 
popular  brother  of  the  Due  d'Angouleme,  with  the  young 
Neapolitan  Princess  Marie  Caroline  (granddaughter  of 
King  Ferdinand),  who  was  already  connected  by  numerous 
ties  of  blood  with  both  France  and  Austria. 

It  was  at  Fontainebleau  that  the  two  Duchesses  d'Angou- 
leme  and  de  Berri  met.  The  latter  had  never,  as  yet,  beheld 
her  husband,  to  whom  she  was  already  wedded  by  proxy.  He 
was  many  years  older  than  she  was,  and  he  had  written  to  her 
on  her  way  from  Naples  through  the  southern  provinces  of 
France — a.  way  which,  to  her,  was  a  triumphal  progress, — 
"  Press  my  hand  when  you  see  me,  if  you  dislike  me  not  too 
much." 

260 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    liK.RKI. 


LA  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRI  261 

At  length,  on  the  afternoon  of  a  bright  summer*s  day,  she 
came — eager  and  impatient — though  attended  by  all  royal 
etiquette,  through  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau,  where,  on  an 
open  greensward  space,  stood  Louis  XVIII.,  his  nephew, 
the  bridegroom.  Due  de  Berri,  with  the  Due  and  Duchesse 
d'Angouleme,  ready  to  receive  her. 

A  carpet  had  been  placed  on  the  ground,  and,  according 
to  punctilio,  the  King  ought  to  have  advanced  upon  one-half 
of  this  carpet,  and  the  bride  to  have  met  him  upon  its  centre. 
But  before  His  Majesty — slow  in  movement  from  com- 
plicated infirmities — could  perform  his  part  of  this  ceremony) 
the  bride,  a  small  but  ardent  creature,  with  blue  eyes,  quick 
tiny  feet,  and  fair  floating  hair,  came  swiftly  towards  him, 
and,  with  all  the  passion  of  her  Italian  nature,  flung  herself 
into  his  arms.  Then,  discerning  quickly,  by  some  womanly 
instinct,  which  was  the  Prince  who,  although  personally  yet 
unknown  to  her,  was  already  her  husband,  she  did  "  press  his 
hand  "  in  a  way  to  please  him  much,  and  instantly  after  this 
she  seemed  to  seek  a  shelter  for  her  blushing  face  upon  the 
bosom  of  the  woman,  the  Princess,  whom  she  had  come  to 
supplant. 

The  Duchesse  d*Angouleme  embraced  her  with  tender 
emotion,  and  the  Due  d'Angouleme  also  proved  himself 
nobly  worthy  of  this  occasion,  which  was  likely  to  give  his 
younger  brother  a  lasting  ascendancy  over  him ;  and  when,  a 
few  days  afterwards,  the  marriage  of  the  Due  and  Duchesse 
de  Berri  was  celebrated  in  public,  with  great  pomp,  at  Notre 
Dame,  most  conspicuously,  yet  meekly,  stood  the  Due  and 
Duchesse  d'Angouleme  near  the  newly-wedded  pair,  whilst 


262  LA  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRI 

prayers  for  posterity  were  being  invoked  in  behalf  of  the 
latter. 

In  honour  of  this  marriage  splendid  fetes  fast  succeeded 
each  other  at  the  Tuileries;  but  though  the  Duchesse  d'An- 
gouleme  presided  at  these  festivities,  the  Duchesse  de  Berri 
shone  forth  as  their  chief  central  charm,  for  this  young 
Princess  was  happy  in  her  newly-wedded  life. 

The  brilliant  little  palace  of  the  Elysee,  in  the  near  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Tuileries,  was  accorded  as  a  residence  to  the 
Due  and  Duchesse  de  Berri,  and  the  receptions  there  held  by 
them,  including  all  the  chief  nobility  of  France,  and  not 
excluding  illustrious  champions  of  literature,  art,  and  science, 
soon  helped  to  make  the  youthful  hostess  popular.  She  had 
as  yet  lived  only  seventeen  summers  of  a  bright  life,  and  her 
husband,  though  in  fact  almost  old  enough  to  be  her  father, 
was  of  such  gay  and  buoyant  disposition  that  he  was  quite 
ready  to  share  with  her  all  the  animated  amusements  in  which 
she  delighted. 

Political  storms  often  menaced  France,  but  from  these  the 
popular  Prince  and  Princess,  who  here  just  now  stand  fore- 
most, had  all  the  less  to  fear,  because  their,  as  yet,  only  surviv- 
ing child  was  a  girl,  and  therefore,  by  no  possibility  according 
to  the  Salic  law  of  France,  an  heir  to  the  throne. 

Unclouded,  therefore,  seemed  their  happiness  when  on 
Shrove  Tuesday — the  last  day  before  Lent,  in  the  year  1820, 
— they  determined  to  show  themselves  at  the  Opera,  where 
three  pieces,  Le  Carnaval  de  Fenise,  Le  Rossignol  and  Les 
Noces  de  Gamachej  were  to  be  performed.  Almost  all  the 
members  of  the  Royal  Family  were  at  the  opera  that  night, 


LA  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRI  263 

and  most  pleasing  of  them  all  to  behold  was  the  Duchesse 
de  Berri,  in  full  evening  costume,  with  diamonds  and  flowers 
upon  her  head  and  breast. 

Le  Carnaval  de  Venise  was  just  then  a  great  success  in 
Paris,  and  the  excited  audience  was  all  the  more  delighted 
with  this  representation  of  the  piece,  because  between  its  acts 
public  curiosity  was  gratified  by  observing  how  the  Due  and 
Duchesse  de  Berri  left  their  own  box  to  pay  visits  to  that  of 
the  Due  d'Orleans  (afterwards  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the 
French),  and  other  of  their  Royal  relatives. 

Presently  when  the  Duchesse  de  Berri  had  returned  to  her 
own  seat,  she  complained  of  fatigue,  and  her  husband  recom- 
mended her  instant  departure,  promising  that  he  himself 
would  remain  to  the  end  of  the  entertainment. 

This  being  agreed  upon,  she  left  her  box,  leaning  upon  his 
arm,  and  thus  reached  her  carriage.  "  Adieu  *'  or  "  Au 
revoir  '*  merrily  cried  out  the  Due  de  Berri  as  his  wife  was 
about  to  start  for  what  they  both  supposed  would  be  but  an 
hour's  separation  from  each  other.  "  Adieu,  Caroline,  we 
shall  quickly  meet  again." 

The  carriage  was  about  to  start,  its  royal  occupant  leaning 
forward  to  wave  her  hand  playfully  in  answer  to  her  hus- 
band's words,  when  suddenly  she  saw  him  stagger  backwards, 
against  the  wall  of  the  theatre,  as  though  struck  by  a  fatal 
blow,  signs  of  which  she  had  also  perceived,  like  one  who  sees 
things  in  a  moment  of  time  during  some  horribly  vivid  dream, 
for  an  assassin  had  rushed  round  the  corner  of  the  Rue 
Richelieu,  and  stabbed  her  husband  to  the  heart. 

Forgetful  of  danger  to  herself,  she  leapt  from  her  carriage, 


264  LA  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRI 

and,  in  another  instant,  having  flown  up  the  steps  of  the 
theatre,  she  flung  her  arms  round  the  being  most  dear  to  her 
on  earth,  and,  clinging  to  him  thus,  she  was,  together  with 
him,  dragged  into  the  vestibule  of  the  Opera  House,  he 
gasping  some  attempted  words  to  comfort  her,  and  she, 
bathed  in  his  blood,  which,  flowing  profusely  from  the  wound 
he  had  received,  stained  her  hair,  her  dress,  the  flowers,  and 
the  diamonds  which  she  wore. 

As  the  wounded  Prince  seemed  to  gasp  for  air,  he  was, 
after  midnight,  transported  by  his  weeping  attendants  to 
another  and  more  spacious  part  of  the  theatre,  from  whence 
the  gay  audience  had  vanished,  never  dreaming  of  the  fright- 
ful tragedy  which  was  going  on  there,  now  that  the  lights 
were  dim,  and  the  flowers  fading  in  that  scene  of  the  brilliant 
spectacle  witnessed  but  an  hour  since. 

The  chill  dawn  of  a  February  morning  was  approaching, 
and  the  cold  hand  of  death  pressed  more  and  more  heavily  on 
the  Due  de  Berri,  by  whose  wounded  side  his  wife  still 
crouched  in  despair.  Her  husband's  sympathy  was  with  her 
more  than  with  himself  at  that  dread  time,  the  King  and  all 
the  Royal  Family  stood  or  knelt  in  various  attitudes  of  misery 
near  the  blood-stained  couch  of  the  dying  Prince,  when  sud- 
denly the  latter  said  aloud  to  his  wife :  "  My  love,  be  not 
thus  overwhelmed  by  grief,  but  control  yourself  for  the  sake 
of  the  child,  the  yet  unborn  child  within  thee." 

As  though  by  an  electric  shock  everybody  present  was 
startled  at  these  words,  for  by  them  was  proclaimed  that  all 
hope  of  legitimate  succession  to  the  throne  of  France  would 
not  expire  with  the  Prince  who  uttered  them, — ^the  Prince 


LA  DUCHESSE  DE   BERRI  265 

who  was  thus  the  first  to  announce  in  his  own  hour  of  death 
the  coming  hour  of  the  birth  of  his  posthumous  son,  called 
by  the  French  legitimists  Henry  V.,  but  best  known  to  the 
world  at  large  as  the  Comte  de  Chambord. 

His  mother  had  mournfully  secluded  herself  during  the 
seven  months  and  fifteen  days  of  her  widowhood  before  the 
date  of  his  birth  (September  29,  1820),  and  although  resid- 
ing at  the  Tuileries,  it  was  but  rarely  that  she  was  seen.  Pale, 
careworn,  clad  in  deepest  mourning,  she  was  a  melancholy 
spectacle  to  the  few  who  were  privileged  to  approach  her ;  but 
after  the  birth  of  her  son,  it  was  as  though  a  new  life  sus- 
tained her;  and,  reanimated  by  hope,  inspired  by  a  strong 
resolution  to  win  popularity,  to  confront  every  danger  for 
his  sake,  she  at  length  re-appeared  in  the  Parisian  world,  of 
which  she  eventually  became  the  brilliant  centre.  Popular 
discontent  concerning  various  political  measures  of  the  day 
was  rife  in  the  capital  of  France.  The  Duchesse  d'Angou- 
leme,  reverenced  as  a  saint,  was  far  more  fit  for  a  cloister 
than  a  court;  the  health  of  the  King  was  failing  fast;  his 
brother  and  successor,  the  Comte  d'ArtoIs,  was  likewise  more 
than  ever  a  recluse  since  the  death  of  his  son,  the  Due  de 
BerrI,  and  It  therefore  needed  all  the  energy,  the  renewed 
life,  the  fascination  of  the  Duchesse  de  BerrI  to  sustain  popu- 
larity in  behalf,  as  she  fondly  hoped,  of  her  posthumous  son's 
future. 

Her  hair,  cut  off  by  her  own  hand  in  the  first  passionate 
agony  of  her  widowhood,  grew  again;  her  robes  of  black 
were  gradually  replaced  by  those  of  more  cheerful  hue,  and 
by  the  time  that  Louis  XVHI.  was  dead  and  her  father-in-law 


266  LA  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRI 

(Charles  X.)  succeeded  to  the  throne,  she  had  again  made 
herself  celebrated  for  the  splendid,  and  even  somewhat 
fantastic,  fetes  inaugurated  by  her  at  the  Tullerles. 

Although  extremely  young  when  she  was  first  married,  the 
Duchesse  de  Berri  had  even  then  seen  enough  of  political 
strife  and  popular  resistance  in  her  native  land  of  Italy  not 
to  dread  the  consequences  of  a  people's  discontent  with  regard 
to  supposed  bigotry  on  the  part  of  Royalty,  wherefore  it  was 
with  extreme  pleasure  that  in  the  year  1828,  just  when  her 
son  was  withdrawn  from  the  hands  of  his  governess,  and 
formally  consigned  into  those  representing  male  authority, 
that  she  set  forth  on  a  tour  through  various  localities,  sig- 
nificant of  his  various  titles,  in  order  to  visit  the  ancient 
Chateau  de  Chambord,  for  from  this  he  derived  one  of  his 
appellations  (the  Comte  de  Chambord),  and  It  had  been 
freely  presented  to  him  by  loyal  Frenchmen,  who,  having 
purchased  It,  declared  that  their  conduct  In  this  matter  was 
only  "  to  do  homage  to  S,  A,  R,  Monseigneur  le  Due  de 
Bordeaux" 

Political  discontent  amongst  various  parties  opposed  to 
successive  Ministries  there  had  always  been,  more  or  less, 
in  France  since  the  Restoration ;  but,  without  here  attempting 
to  unfold  the  various  real  or  fancied  causes  of  that  discontent, 
it  need  only  be  said  that  seldom  had  the  Duchesse  de  Berri 
appeared  more  beloved  by  the  French  people  than  when  the 
Revolution  of  1830  suddenly  proclaimed  itself. 

She  was  at  St.  Cloud  with  her  son,  when  during  those 
"  three  memorable  July  days,"  familiar  to  most  readers,  Paris 
was  in  a  turbulent  state  of  anarchy,  and  a  new  government 


LA  DUCHESSE  DE   BERRI  267 

was  demanded  in  the  person  of  Louis  Philippe,  Due 
d'Orleans. 

Arrived  in  England,  the  various  members  of  the  Royal 
Family  of  France  first  found  a  refuge  in  Dorsetshire,  but, 
by  the  hospitality  of  his  Britannic  Majesty,  they  soon  repaired 
to  t!ie  Castle  of  Holy  rood,  which  had  been  offered  to  them 
as  a  residence. 

The  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  there  interested  herself  much 
in  the  education  of  her  niece  and  nephew,  the  children  of  the 
Due  and  Duchesse  de  Berri;  but  the  mother  of  these  chil- 
dren herself  was  preparing  for  the  execution  of  great  plans, 
by  which  she  hoped  to  regain  the  throne  of  France  for  her 
son.  In  her  exile,  or  even  perhaps  before  that  date,  she  had 
met  again  the  Comte  Lucchesi-Palli,  a  Neapolitan  nobleman, 
who  is  said  by  some  of  her  contemporaries  to  have  formed  an 
attachment  for  her  during  her  early  youth  in  Sicily.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  she,  after  more  than  ten  years  of  widowhood,  was 
not  unmindful  of  his  devotion  to  her;  but  none  the  less  did 
she  consecrate  herself  to  the  cause  of  her  son,  whose  father 
she  had  loved  with  the  ardour  which  had  since  been  turned 
to  grief. 

And  thus  it  came  to  pass  that,  contrary  to  the  will  of  the 
royal  exiles  at  Holyrood,  she  embarked  one  April  night  of 
the  year  1832,  on  her  way  to  Marseilles,  from  which  place, 
as  from  every  other  locality  In  France,  she  was  forbidden 
entrance  by  that  law  of  proscription  which  had  exiled  her 
and  her  family,  but  where  she  knew  that  an  active  feeling 
of  loyalty  was  rife  in  behalf  of  her  son,  the  rightful  King  of 
France;  since  her  grandfather  had  abdicated  in  his  favour, 


268  LA  DUCHESSE  DE   BERRI 

and  the  Due  d'Angouleme  had  renounced  the  succession  to  the 
throne. 

Though  personally  disguised,  and  journeying  through 
various  perils  under  many  an  incognita,  she  carried  in  her 
small  but  determined  hand  the  fiery  brand  of  civil  war. 
Undaunted  by  first  failures,  uncomplaining  under  terrible 
privations,  in  constant  danger  as  to  her  life  and  liberty,  cor- 
responding by  secret  agency  in  cyphers  which,  being  written 
in  white  ink,  sorely  tried  her  eyes  to  read,  she  nevertheless 
lit  up  in  La  Vendee  and  elsewhere  a  glorious  enthusiasm  for 
what  she  believed  to  be  the  rightful  cause  of  France,  in  a 
way  to  prove  that  the  chivalry  of  France  was,  despite  all 
revolutions,  yet  ardently  alive. 

If  her  followers  suffered,  the  Duchesse  de  Bern,  always 
as  far  as  possible  in  the  midst  of  them,  suffered  still  more; 
and,  not  discouraged  by  frequent  repulses,  she  made  her  way 
through  the  country  from  which  she  was  banished  by  law, 
and  in  Brittany  found  brave  men  who  eagerly  armed  them- 
selves in  behalf  of  "  Henri  V.,"  as  her  son  was,  and  still  is, 
called  by  French  Royalists.  Such  increasing  faith  indeed 
had  this  Princess  in  the  loyalty  of  man — a  faith  which  had 
been  strengthened  by  her  residence  in  "  La  Vendee  the  incor- 
ruptible,"— that  she  forgot  the  possibility  of  treachery  lurk- 
ing near  her;  and  consequently,  it  was  at  Nantes  that  she, 
in  the  month  of  November,  1832,  was  at  length  captured. 

Her  conduct  was  as  undaunted  by  dreary  captivity  as  it 
had  been  in  face  of  death,  and  under  the  various  vicissitudes 
which  had  befallen  her.  But,  though  a  heroine,  she  was 
**  woman  spite  of  herself  " ;  for  in  the  course  of  some  months, 


LA    DUCHESSE    DE    BERRI  269 

It  was  intimated  to  the  world  at  large,  by  means  of  a  letter 
published  in  the  Moniteur^  but  dated  from  her  prison  and 
signed  by  her  name,  that  she  had  for  some  time  been 
privately  married  to  Count  Lucchesi-Palli.  She  was  forth- 
with liberated  from  the  citadel  of  Blaye,  though  not  to  go 
back  to  her  Royal  relatives  at  Holyrood,  for  she  turned  her 
face  towards  Sicily,  where  a  home  and  her  husband  awaited 
her.  Henceforth  her  Royal  son,  the  Comte  de  Chambord, 
was  under  the  direction  of  his  grandfather,  Charles  X.,  and 
that  of  his  uncle  and  aunt,  the  Due  and  Duchesse 
d'Angouleme. 


JOAN  OF  ARC 

(1412— 1431) 
CHARLES     KNIGHT 

IN  the  hamlet  of  Domremy,  near  Vaucouleurs,  a  pastoral 
country  watered  by  the  Meuse,  dwelt  a  little  cultivator 
named  Jacques  d'Arc,  with  his  wife  Isabel.  They  had  a 
daughter,  Joan,  who  was  remarkable  for  her  early  piety. 
Her  talents  were  considerable ;  but  she  had  received  no  educa- 
tion, and  made  the  mark  of  a  cross  at  the  beginning  of  the 
letters  which  were  written  at  her  dictation.  She  said  of  her- 
self, "  I  feared  no  woman  of  Rouen  in  sewing  and  spinning." 
When  thirteen  years  of  age,  she  refused  to  join  in  the  sports 
of  the  young  people  of  her  hamlet;  and  secluded  herself  in 
the  woods  and  fields,  or  was  found  kneeling  before  the  cross 
in  her  parish  church.  This  was  after  the  period  when  the 
death  of  Charles  VI.  had  divided  France  Into  two  great 
factions;  and  the  vicinity  of  Domremy  to  Burgundy  had 
made  the  feuds  of  the  Burgundlans  and  the  Armagnacs 
familiar  to  the  peasantry.  Joan  saw  the  men  of  her  own  vil- 
lage violently  disputing  as  to  the  merits  of  these  parties;  but 
mostly  agreed  in  hatred  of  the  English.  She  had  herself 
looked  upon  the  extreme  misery  of  the  people ;  and  she  attrib- 
uted it,  not  without  justice,  to  the  Invasion  which  had  given 
the  crown  to  an  English  king  at  Paris,  whilst  the  true  heir 

270 


JOAN    OF    ARC. 


JOAN  OF  ARC  271 

was  in  danger  and  difficulty.  Her  enthusiastic  nature  was 
stimulated  by  these  united  impulses  of  religion  and  patriotism ; 
and  in  her  solitary  meditations  she  began  to  see  visions  and 
to  hear  voices.  The  first  voice  which  she  heard  only  exhorted 
her  to  be  pious  and  discreet;  but  then  came  a  figure  with 
wings,  and  commanded  her  to  go  to  the  succour  of  the  King, 
for  that  she  should  recover  his  kingdom.  From  time  to  time 
she  told  what  she  had  seen  and  heard.  "  My  voices  have 
instructed  me  " — "  My  voices  have  commanded  me,"  were 
her  expressions.  She  seems  to  have  distinctly  separated  her  own 
supposed  revelations  from  the  local  superstitions;  for  there 
was  near  her  village  a  wonderful  tree,  called  the  Ladies'  tree, 
growing  beside  a  spring  with  healing  properties ;  and  old  peo- 
ple said  that  fairies  frequented  the  place;  but  she  declared 
that  she  never  saw  fairies,  and  she  never  went  to  the  tree  to 
make  garlands,  as  others  did,  from  the  time  she  knew  she 
ought  to  go  to  the  King.  Amongst  the  ridiculous  accusations 
which  were  afterwards  heaped  up  against  her,  she  was 
charged  with  having  attended  the  Witches'  Sabbath  on  every 
Thursday  night  at  the  Fairies'  oak  of  Bourlemont.  There 
was  an  ancient  prophecy,  known  to  the  country  people,  that 
France  should  be  lost  by  a  woman  and  saved  by  a  woman. 
The  Queen  Isabella,  who  had  brought  in  the  English,  was 
the  one.  The  people  now  added  to  the  prophecy  that  a 
virgin  from  the  marches  of  Lorraine  should  be  the  other. 
Before  1429,  Joan  was  entirely  persuaded  that  she  had  a 
power  given  her  to  restore  the  kingdom  to  Charles  VH. 

The  voices  which  Joan  heard  disclosed  to  her  the  prac- 
tical mode  of  carrying  out  her  strong  idea.    They  told 


272  JOAN  OF  ARC 

her,  what  would  have  been  her  natural  conviction,  that 
she  must  put  herself  in  communication  with  some  great 
person.  She  sought  the  feudal  lord  of  Baudricourt  at  Vau- 
couleurs.  He  sent  her  away,  as  one  distraught.  She  told 
her  story  to  two  gentlemen  who  dwelt  near  her.  "  There 
is  no  help  for  France  but  in  me,"  she  said.  "  I  would  rather 
spin  by  the  side  of  my  poor  mother,  but  I  must  go.  My 
Lord  calls  me."  Her  pretensions  were  spread  abroad.  The 
Duke  of  Lorraine  sent  for  her,  to  cure  him  of  a  malady.  She 
said  that  she  had  no  heavenly  light  to  remove  his  disease,  and 
she  counselled  him  to  lead  a  better  life  than  he  had  been  wont 
to  lead.  The  Duke  gave  her  four  francs,  and  bade  her 
depart. 

At  last,  the  Lord  of  Baudricourt  listened  to  her  when 
she  again  came  before  him  in  her  shabby  red  gown.  The 
people  of  Vaucouleurs  provided  her  the  equipment  of  a 
horse  and  a  man's  dress;  and  she  went  forth  on  a  perilous 
journey,  having  received  the  oaths  of  John  de  Novelompont 
and  Bertrand  de  Poulengi,  who  had  first  seriously  listened 
to  her  pretensions,  that  they  would  conduct  her  safely  to  the 
King.  They  travelled  through  a  wild  country  in  the  winter 
season,  taking  the  most  unfrequented  routes,  and  using  every 
care  to  avoid  the  Burgundians  and  the  English.  She  for- 
warded a  letter,  which  she  dictated,  to  Charles,  and  at  length 
received  permission  to  proceed  to  Chinon.  Here  she  arrived 
after  eleven  days'  travel.  Her  fame  had  gone  before  her.  At 
last  she  overcame  the  difficulties  of  approaching  the  King. 
From  that  moment,  when  she  publicly  announced  her  mission 
at  the  Court  of  Charles,  many  things  which  she  most  probably 


JOAN  OF  ARC  273 

did  through  her  own  shrewd  sense  were  accounted  miraculous. 
Thus  she  is  recorded  to  have  selected  the  Prince  out  of  a 
crowd  of  attendants;  and  to  have  indicated  to  him  an 
acquaintance  with  facts  only  known  to  himself.  It  is  difficult 
not  to  believe  that  at  this  stage  she  had  become  an  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  some  persons  about  the  King.  Every 
ostensible  precaution,  however,  appears  to  have  been  taken 
to  prevent  his  cause  being  committed  to  an  impostor.  Her 
honest  life  was  fully  proved;  and  in  the  conviction  of  her 
sanctity  learned  doctors,  prudent  counsellors,  and  bold  war- 
riors agreed  that  the  Maid  should  be  confided  in.  A  suit 
of  armour  was  prepared  for  her;  and  she  indicated  where  a 
sword  could  be  found,  behind  the  altar  of  a  church,  at 
Fierbois.  At  the  head  of  a  large  force,  she  set  out  for 
Orleans,  having  authority  for  its  command  over  the  best 
knights  of  France.  At  Blois  she  put  on  her  armour.  March- 
ing on  the  right  bank  of  the  Loire,  she  desired  to  enter 
Orleans  through  the  English  lines  on  that  side.  She  was 
overruled  by  Dunois,  of  which  she  bitterly  complained.  It 
was  at  length  decided  that  boats  loaded  with  supplies  should 
proceed  up  the  river.  The  day  was  stormy,  and  the  vessels 
could  make  no  way.  "  The  wind  will  change,"  said  the 
confident  girl.  It  did  change,  and  the  supplies  and  the  troops 
were  landed  safely  about  six  miles  below  the  city.  Mean- 
while, the  garrison  of  Orleans  made  a  sortie  on  the  north, 
which  diverted  the  attention  of  the  besiegers.  An  hour  after 
sunset  Jeanne  d'Arc  rode  into  Orleans  at  the  eastern  gate 
mounted  on  a  white  horse,  her  standard,  on  which  was  a 
figure  of  the  Redeemer,  being  borne  before  her.    The  people 


274  JOAN  OF  ARC 

by  torchlight  crowded  around  her ;  and  she  exhorted  them  to 
honour  God,  and  to  hope  In  her  for  their  deliverance. 

It  was  the  29th  of  April  when  this  extraordinary  aid,  which 
was  firmly  believed  to  be  supernatural,  arrived  to  the 
beleaguered  city.  In  the  camp  of  the  English  the  men  would 
whisper  their  fears  of  impending  misfortune;  for  it  could 
not  be  concealed  that  a  woman,  said  to  be  gifted  with  the 
spirit  of  prophecy,  was  coming  to  Orleans  at  the  head  of  a 
great  reinforcement.  The  shouts  that  came  forth  from  the 
populous  city  on  that  April  night  would  tell  that  she  was 
come.  The  next  day  a  herald  from  the  Pucelle  presented 
himself  at  the  English  camp.  The  respect  paid  to  the  mes- 
senger of  princes  was  denied  to  the  messenger  of  a  reputed 
sorceress,  and  he  was  threatened  to  be  burnt  as  a  heretic. 
Another  herald  came  to  defy  Talbot;  and  to  declare,  from 
the  commander  of  the  French,  that  If  the  messenger  of  the 
Pucelle  received  any  harm.  It  should  be  visited  upon  the  Eng- 
lish prisoners.  These  proceedings  began  to  spread  alarm 
amongst  the  brave  yeomen  of  England,  who  had  fronted  so 
many  dangers  In  the  field,  but  who  had  a  terror  of  witches 
and  magicians,  which  was  a  characteristic  of  the  period. 

The  soldiers  of  Suffolk  and  Talbot  looked  on  in  terror 
and  amazement,  when,  on  a  tower  facing  the  Tournelles,  a 
form  apeared  In  shining  armour,  and  bade  them  depart  If 
they  would  avoid  misery  and  shame.  William  Glasdale, 
the  commander  of  the  Tournelles,  reviled  the  maiden,  and 
told  her  to  go  back  to  her  cows.  "  Your  men  will  be  driven 
to  retreat,"  she  exclaimed,  "  but  you  will  not  live  to  fly  with 
them."     The  French  waited  for  succours  from  other  gar- 


JOAN  OF  ARC  275 

risons,  before  they  attempted  any  great  operations  against 
the  besiegers.  Joan  was  invariably  for  instant  attack,  without 
heeding  disparity  of  numbers  or  disadvantages  of  position. 
Some  of  the  knights  were  indignant  at  her  assumed  authority ; 
but  by  her  resistless  force  of  will  she  conquered  all  opposition. 
The  succours  at  length  were  at  hand.  There  was  no  attempt 
to  bring  them  into  the  city  under  cover  of  darkness,  or  while 
the  English  were  engaged  in  another  quarter.  At  the  head 
of  the  French  knights  and  soldiers,  followed  by  the  people 
of  the  town,  Joan  rode  forth  with  her  banner,  between  the 
towers  of  the  besiegers.  They  looked  on  with  wonder;  but 
there  was  no  resistance.  When  she  returned  at  night,  she 
threw  herself  exhausted  on  a  bed.  Awakened  by  a  noise,  she 
cried  out,  "  My  arms !  my  horse !  "  She  rushed  into  the  street, 
mounted  with  her  banner,  and  rode  alone  to  the  spot  where 
she  heard  the  clamour.  A  rash  sortie  had  been  made ;  and  the 
assailants  were  driven  back.  When  they  saw  the  white  horse 
and  the  banner  of  the  Maid,  they  shouted  for  joy,  and  fol- 
lowed her  out  of  the  gate  into  the  besiegers'  lines.  After  an 
engagement  of  three  hours,  the  English  fort  was  taken  and 
set  on  fire.  It  was  Joan's  first  battle.  She  had  fought  with 
the  courage  and  address  of  the  most  accomplished  knight. 

The  terror  of  the  English  after  this  sortie  from  the  Bur- 
gundy gate  became  more  universal.  The  next  day  the 
Pucelle  and  the  chiefs  crossed  the  Loire  in  a  boat,  and  led  an 
attack  upon  a  fortification  on  the  left  bank.  She  was  slightly 
wounded,  and  passed  the  night  in  the  field.  The  great  force 
of  the  besiegers  was  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river;  and  the 
Lord  of  Gaucourt,  the  Governor  of  Orleans,  was  opposed 


276  JOAN  OF  ARC 

to  this  leading  forth  of  the  garrison,  to  leave  the  city  defence- 
less, while  the  English  were  attacked  on  the  left  bank.  But 
the  daring,  confident  girl  had  completely  won  the  real  lead- 
ership of  the  soldiers  and  the  citizens.  She  had  returned  to 
Orleans  and  had  told  the  chiefs  that  she  had  much  to  do 
on  the  morrow.  Without  any  concert  with  the  French 
leaders  she  rose  early  in  the  morning,  and  went  forth  with 
a  tumultuous  crowd  to  the  Burgundy  gate.  It  was  shut 
against  her  egress.  The  Governor  was  compelled  to  open  it, 
and  she  rode  out,  followed  by  soldiers  and  a  great  multitude. 
Their  counsel  being  thus  rejected,  the  French  knights,  with 
their  men  at  arms,  reluctantly  followed.  But  their  prudence 
was  soon  laid  aside  in  the  din  of  battle.  The  river  had  been 
crossed  by  Joan,  and  she  had  commenced  an  assault  on  the 
Tournelles,  the  great  fort  held  to  be  impregnable.  The  artil- 
lery from  its  walls  thinned  the  ranks  of  the  assailants;  but 
the  wonderful  Maid  was  always  ready  with  her  rallying  cry. 
She  was  the  first  to  mount  the  rampart  by  a  ladder.  An 
arrow  struck  her,  and  she  fell  into  the  ditch.  She  was  carried 
off;  and  after  a  few  natural  tears  drew  the  shaft  out  of  her 
shoulder,  and  knelt  in  prayer.  The  attack  had  lasted  four 
hours,  and  nothing  had  been  gained.  The  retreat  was 
sounded.  Joan  implored  Dunois  not  to  move.  "  Let  our 
people  rest,  and  eat  and  drink."  Her  standard-bearer  had 
remained  near  the  spot  whence  the  Maid  was  borne  away. 
The  Lord  of  Daubon,  who  was  against  a  retreat,  took  the 
standard,  and  with  another,  descended  into  the  ditch;  and 
waving  the  well-known  sign  of  victory,  the  French  rallied 
round  him.     Seeing  what  was  taking  place,  Joan  went  for- 


JOAN  OF  ARC  277 

ward  to  claim  her  standard.  The  English,  who  had  seen 
her  borne  off  wounded,  felt  a  new  alarm.  The  French 
advanced  again  to  the  attack  of  the  fort,  under  their  marvel- 
lous leader.  From  the  other  bank  the  people  of  Orleans 
were  storming  the  Tournelles,  having  crossed  the  broken 
arches  of  the  bridge  by  beams  placed  on  the  buttresses.  The 
English  were  now  between  two  assaults.  The  soldiers  were 
filled  with  a  superstitious  awe.  The  maiden  was  on  the  bat- 
tlement of  the  second  tower  of  the  works,  the  first  having  been 
taken.  The  soldiers,  with  Glasdale  their  commander,  thus 
surrounded,  were  retreating  into  the  main  defence  upon  a 
wooden  bridge,  when  a  cannon-ball  struck  it,  and  the  com- 
mander and  his  men  fell  into  the  stream,  and  were  drowned, 
The  prophetic  words  of  the  Maid,  when  Glasdale  reviled  her, 
were  accomplished.  There  was  now  no  chance  of  resistance 
to  the  impassioned  assaults  of  the  French.  The  English  threw 
down  their  arms  and  were  slaughtered,  drowned,  or  taken 
prisoners,  to  the  number  of  seven  thousand.  No  aid  came 
from  the  panic-stricken  camp ;  and  the  Maiden  passed  over  the 
repaired  bridge  into  the  city,  amidst  the  shouts  of  the  multi- 
tude, whilst  every  steeple  sent  forth  its  peals  of  gratulating 
bells,  and  at  every  church  Te  Deum  was  sung  on  that  night 
of  victory.  The  next  morning,  at  break  of  day,  the  English 
marched  out  from  their  forts,  and  formed  in  order  of  battle 
to  the  north  and  west  of  the  city.  They  stood  in  an  attitude 
of  defiance,  before  the  walls.  Joan  had  hastily  risen,  and 
was  soon  at  the  northern  gate.  "  Attack  them  not,"  she 
said.  "  If  they  attack  you,  defend  yourselves."  It  was  Sun- 
day the  8th  of  May.     An  altar  was  brought  to  the  gate; 


278  JOAN  OF  ARC 

and  the  priests  chanted  a  solemn  service.  The  English  stand- 
ards were  displayed;  the  trumpets  sounded;  but  they  turned 
their  faces  from  Orleans.    The  siege  was  at  an  end. 

It  was  a  false  policy  of  the  English  chiefs  to  decry  Jeanne 
d'Arc  as  a  sorceress.  It  was  the  ready  mode  to  spread  the 
greatest  terror  of  her  exploits  amongst  their  own  adherents. 
The  French,  with  equal  confidence,  proclaimed  her  as  the 
favoured  of  Heaven,  who  exhibited  as  much  courage  as  piety. 
At  this  juncture,  the  Duke  of  Bedford  secured  the  doubtful 
co-operation  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy;  and  the  Cardinal 
Beaufort,  who  had  raised  an  army  in  England  for  a  crusade 
against  the  heretics  of  Bohemia,  turned  over  his  troops  to  the 
Regent  of  France,  to  war  against  the  Armagnacs,  and  to  make 
new  efforts  against  the  enchantments  which  had  given  them 
power  to  resist  the  long  triumphant  bravery  of  the  English. 
They  took  the  field  with  new  hopes.  Onward  went  the 
Maid,  upon  her  resolved  design  that  Charles  VII.  should 
be  crowned  at  Rheims.  On  the  17th  July,  Charles  was 
crowned  In  its  ancient  church.  There  were  few  nobles  present. 
The  Maiden  stood  with  her  standard  before  the  altar.  The 
expense  of  the  coronation  amounted  only  to  twenty-four  Paris- 
ian livres.  Never  was  king  so  inaugurated.  All  the  accustomed 
pomp  was  absent;  but  when  the  enthusiastic  girl  kissed  the 
feet  of  her  monarch,  her  tears  were  a  holler  consecration  than 
the  mystic  oil  with  which,  as  the  legends  told,  Clovis  had  been 
there  baptised.  Charles  then  went  on  towards  Paris,  receiving 
the  submission  of  many  towns  on  his  march.  Joan  thought  her 
mission  accomplished;  and  earnestly  desired  to  return  to  her 
father  and  mother,  to  keep  their  herds  and   flocks.     Her 


JOAN  OF  ARC  279 

counsels  now  became  vacillating.  Sometimes  Charles 
retreated,  and  sometimes  marched  forward.  Bedford  had 
sent  him  a  challenge  to  meet  In  the  open  field,  couched  in  the 
most  opprobrious  terms;  and  he  was  moving  rapidly  to  bring 
the  French  to  an  engagement.  The  two  armies  suddenly  met 
at  Senlis;  and  for  three  days  a  battle  was  vainly  expected. 
Each  army  then  took  its  own  way — Bedford  for  Nor- 
mandy, which  had  been  entered  by  a  hostile  force  under  the 
constable  Richemont.  Charles  marched  on  to  Paris.  On  the 
1 2th  of  September  an  attack  was  made  at  the  Faubourg  St. 
Honore.  The  intrepid  Joan,  though  she  had  lost  confidence 
in  her  miraculous  voices,  displayed  her  wonted  courage.  She 
scaled  the  walls;  but  was  wounded,  and  fell  into  the  fosse< 
Crawling  out  from  the  heaps  of  dead  and  dying,  she  again 
waved  her  standard.  The  old  confidence  in  her  powers  had 
deserted  the  French;  and  when  the  attack  was  repulsed,  they 
reproached  her  that  she  had  said  they  should  sleep  that  night 
in  Paris.  "  You  would  have  slept  there,"  she  replied,  "  if 
you  had  fought  as  I  fought."  Charles  retreated  to  the 
Loire.  The  succeeding  winter  was  passed  by  the  King  at 
Bourges.  In  the  spring  the  army  moved  to  the  relief  of 
Complegne,  which  was  besieged  by  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
Joan  got  into  the  town,  and  the  same  day  headed  a  sortie. 
She  was  taken  prisoner,  and  was  carried  to  the  Burgundian 
quarters.    Her  wars  were  over. 

For  four  months  Joan  was  confined  in  the  castle  of 
Beaurevolr,  near  Cambray.  She  was  a  prisoner  of  war  to 
the  Burgundians.  She  was  afterwards  conveyed  to  Arras, 
and  to  Crotoy;  and  was  finally  delivered  to  the  English  In 


28o  JOAN  OF  ARC 

their  city  of  Rouen.  The  University  of  Paris  urged  her  trial 
before  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal;  and  there  are  letters  from 
that  body,  full  of  reproach  to  the  English  for  not  delivering 
up  their  prisoner  to  the  justice  of  the  Church.  At  length 
letters  patent  were  issued  in  the  name  of  Henry  VI.,  in  which 
it  was  stated  that,  in  accordance  with  the  public  opinion,  and 
at  the  especial  request  of  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais  and  the 
University  of  Paris,  she  was  to  be  given  up  to  the  Bishop,  to 
be  examined  and  proceeded  against  under  his  authority.  She 
was  subjected  for  several  months  to  the  most  searching  inter- 
rogatories. At  fifteen  examinations  she  was  never  discon- 
certed, but  answered  every  question  with  perfect  frankness. 
All  the  circumstances  of  her  early  life  were  related  by  her; 
and  her  belief  in  her  voices  and  visions  emphatically  declared. 
Her  determination  to  wear  the  male  dress  of  her  triumphs 
was  persisted  in.  Upon  her  alleged  revelations  were  founded 
articles  accusing  her  of  sorcery;  and  upon  her  declining  to 
submit  to  the  ordinances  of  the  Church,  when  her  voices  com- 
manded the  contrary,  the  charge  of  being  a  schismatic  was 
also  introduced.  Heresy  and  schism,  meriting  the  punish- 
ment of  fire,  were  declared  to  be  found  against  her.  The 
University  of  Paris  ratified  the  articles  of  accusation.  On 
a  public  scaffold  at  Rouen  the  sentence  of  condemnation  was 
read  to  her  by  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais.  Her  courage  deserted 
her;  and  she  expressed  her  contrition  and  submission.  Her 
sentence  of  burning  at  the  stake  was  then  to  be  commuted 
to  perpetual  imprisonment.  She  was  taken  back  to  prison, 
but  after  two  days  her  confidence  returned;  and  she 
re-af!irmed  her  belief  that  her  voices  came  from  God;  and 


JOAN  OF  ARC  281 

that,  not  understanding  what  the  adjuration  was  that  she  had 
been  called  upon  to  sign,  she  had  signed  in  the  fear  of  being 
burnt.  She  was  now  a  relapsed  heretic,  in  the  terms  of  the 
cruel  zeal  of  the  persecuting  ecclesiastics,  and  her  fate  was 
no  longer  a  matter  of  doubt.  In  the  old  market-place  of 
Rouen  a  pile  of  wood  was  built  up;  and  round  it  a  scafEold 
was  erected,  where  prelates  and  nobles  might  sit  to  behold 
the  death  of  the  heroic  girl.  There  sat  Cardinal  Beaufort 
and  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais;  and  as  Joan  stood  before  them, 
a  sermon  was  preached,  setting  forth  her  atrocities;  and  the 
preacher  concluded  with,  "  Joan,  go  in  peace ;  the  Church 
can  no  longer  protect  thee,  and  delivers  thee  into  secular 
hands."  She  was  immediately  dragged  to  the  pile;  the  fatal 
cap  of  the  Inquisition,  with  the  words  "  heretique,  relapse, 
apostate,  idolatref*  was  placed  on  her  head;  the  fire  was 
kindled.  Her  last  word  was  "  Jesus."  On  the  spot  where 
this  deed  of  infamy  was  perpetrated,  stands  one  of  the  mon- 
uments by  which  the  French  of  later  times  have  sought  to 
redeem  their  share  of  the  disgrace  of  this  murder  of  the 
30th  of  May,  1 43 1. 


HENRIETTA     MARIA,  DUCHESS    OF 
ORLEANS 

(1644 — 1670) 

JOHN   HENEAGE  JESSE 

YOUNGEST  daughter  of  Charles  I.  Lovely  in  her 
person,  gay  and  attractive  in  her  manners,  fond  of 
admiration,  and  not  averse  to  intrigue,  she  was  the 
idol  alike  of  the  French  King  and  of  his  complaisant  cour- 
tiers. She  was  the  favourite  child  and  constant  companion 
of  her  mother,  whose  religion  she  embraced  and  whose  coun- 
try she  preferred.  With  all  the  vivacity  of  her  fascinating 
parent,  she  possessed  much  of  the  wit  and  humour  of  her 
brother  Charles.  Burnet,  who  is  no  friend  to  her  character, 
speaks  of  her  as  the  wittiest  woman  in  France.  She  was 
never  even  beheld  by  her  unfortunate  father. 

Henrietta  was  born  in  Bedford  House,  Exeter,  in  the 
midst  of  the  civil  troubles,  on  the  i6th  of  June,  1644.  Only 
ten  days  after  her  birth,  her  mother  was  compelled  to  resign 
her  to  the  care  of  others,  being  forced  to  seek  refuge  in 
France.  She  was  intrusted  by  Charles  to  the  beautiful  Coun- 
tess of  Morton,*  who,  true  to  her  trust,  contrived  to  elude 
the  vigilance  of  the  Parliament,  and  escaped  with  her  young 

♦Anne,  daughter  of  Sir  Edward  Villiers  (brother  to  George 
Villiers,  first  Duke  of  Buckingham),  and  wife  of  Robert  Douglas, 
Earl  of  Morton. 

283 


DUCHESS    OF   ORLEANS. 


DUCHESS  OF  ORLEANS  283 

charge  to  Paris.  The  Princess  was  scarcely  more  than  two 
years  old  when  they  set  out  from  Oatlands  on  their  hazardous 
journey.  They  had  disguised  her  in  a  coarse  grey  frock,  and 
as  the  child  naturally  missed  the  bright  colours  she  had  been 
accustomed  to,  she  frequently  lisped  out  her  displeasure, 
assuring  every  one  she  spoke  to  that  it  was  not  the  dress  she 
had  always  worn. 

The  Queen  was  overjoyed  to  embrace  her  child,  and  from 
this  period  they  were  inseparable.  The  childhood  of  the 
young  Princess  was  passed  either  in  Paris  or  its  vicinity. 

The  appearance  of  the  youthful  Princess  was  hailed  with 
rapture  in  the  brilliant  circles  of  Paris.  At  the  French  Court 
there  were  none  who  could  compete  with  her  either  in  wit  or 
loveliness;  and  the  young  King,  Louis  XIV.,  was  the  first 
to  confess  the  power  of  her  charms. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that,  like  many  of  her  family,  the  heart  of 
Henrietta  was  too  susceptible  of  tender  sentiments.  Among 
the  foremost  of  Henrietta's  lovers  stands  the  Comte  de 
Guiche.  The  feeling  on  both  sides  is  described  as  ardent  and 
sincere.  Another  of  Henrietta's  reputed  lovers  was  the 
Comte  de  Treville.  When  on  her  deathbed,  it  is  said  she 
repeated  in  her  delirium,  "Adieu,  Treville!**  The  Count 
was  so  much  affected  by  this  slight  incident,  or  more  probably 
by  the  death  of  his  mistress,  that  he  shut  himself  up  for  many 
years  in  a  monastery.  When  he  returned  to  the  world,  he 
was  an  altered  and  a  devout  man. 

At  the  Restoration,  Henrietta  accompanied  her  mother  to 
England,  where  she  remained  about  six  months.  Pepys  says 
in  his  Diary :     "  The  Princess  Henrietta  is  very  pretty,  but 


284  DUCHESS  OF   ORLEANS 

much  below  my  expectation ;  and  her  dressing  of  herself  with 
her  hair  frizzed  short  up  to  her  ears,  did  make  her  seem  so 
much  the  less  to  me.  But  my  wife  standing  near  her  with 
two  or  three  black  patches  on,  and  well  dressed,  did  seem  to 
me  much  handsomer  than  she."  On  the  31st  of  March, 
t66i,  while  yet  scarcely  seventeen,  she  was  married  to  Philip, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  only  brother  to  Louis  XIV.,  a  wicked  and 
narrow-minded  voluptuary,  with  nothing  to  recommend  him 
but  his  handsome  person. 

In  May,  1670,  Henrietta  again  visited  England,  on  which 
occasion  she  is  reported  to  have  confirmed  her  brother  James 
in  his  predilection  for  the  Romish  faith.  Her  principal 
object,  however,  as  Is  well  known,  was  to  persuade  Charles 
to  join  the  French  King  In  a  league  against  the  Dutch. 
Charles,  attended  by  the  Duke  of  York,  Prince  Rupert,  and 
the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  hastened  to  Dover  to  receive  her 
on  landing.  The  Court  shortly  followed,  and  for  a  fort- 
night, which  was  the  extent  of  her  visit,  Dover  was  the  con- 
stant scenes  of  splendid  rejoicings.  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  she  is  said  to  have  fixed  her  affections  on  the  unfortunate 
Duke  of  Monmouth. 

Henrietta  was  the  favourite  sister  of  Charles,  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  the  sincerity  of  his  affection.  Colbert,  the 
French  Ambassador  in  England,  in  his  despatches,  lays  great 
stress  on  this  circumstance.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  writes: 
"  Her  influence  over  the  King  was  marked  by  all ;  he  wept 
when  he  parted  with  her,  and  whatever  favour  she  asked  of 
him  was  granted." 

Some  days  after  her  return  to  France  she  desired  one  of 


DUCHESS   OF   ORLEANS  285 

her  attendants  to  bring  her  usual  beverage,  a  glass  of  succory 
water.  She  complained  at  the  time  that  it  was  very  bitter, 
and  being  presently  attacked  by  the  most  excruciating  pains, 
exclaimed  several  times  that  she  was  poisoned;  desiring  that 
she  might  be  put  to  bed,  and  her  confessor  instantly  sent  for. 
The  King  of  France  shortly  afterwards  arrived,  bringing  with 
him  his  own  physician.  The  latter  endeavoured  to  console 
her  with  false  hopes,  but  she  persisted  in  her  conviction  that 
she  should  never  recover.  Her  piety  and  resolution  are 
described  as  most  exemplary.  She  told  her  husband  that  she 
had  the  less  fear  of  death,  as  she  had  nothing  to  reproach 
herself  with  in  her  conduct  towards  him.  Of  the  French 
King  she  took  leave  with  all  the  grace  of  former  days,  telling 
him  that  what  made  her  most  regret  to  leave  the  world  was 
the  loss  of  his  friendship  and  esteem. 

She  had  more  than  once  expressed  a  strong  desire  that 
Montagu,  the  English  Ambassador,  should  be  summoned  to 
her  sick  chamber;  and  accordingly  he  attended,  and  remained 
with  her  till  the  last.  She  told  him  she  could  not  possibly 
live  long,  and  desired  him  to  convey  her  most  affectionate 
regards  to  the  King,  her  brother,  and  to  thank  him  for  all 
the  kindness  he  had  ever  shown  her.  She  frequently  recurred 
to  the  grief  which  he  would  feel  at  her  loss.  "  I  have  always 
loved  him,"  she  said,  "  above  all  things  in  the  world,  and 
should  not  regret  to  leave  It,  but  that  I  leave  him."  She  told 
Montagu  where  he  would  discover  her  money  after  her  death, 
desiring  him  to  distribute  it  among  her  servants,  whom  she 
mentioned  by  name;  she  recommended  them  also  in  the 
strongest  manner  to  the  protection  of  Charles.     She  said 


286  DUCHESS   OF   ORLEANS 

that  she  had  long  been  on  bad  terms  with  her  husband,  and 
that  he  had  recently  been  exasperated  by  finding  her  in  close 
conversation  with  the  King  of  France ;  but  they  were  discours- 
ing, she  said,  on  affairs  which  could  not  be  communicated  to 
a  third  person.  Montagu  more  than  once  inquired  of  her  in 
English  if  she  believed  herself  poisoned,  but  her  confessor 
caught  the  expression,  and  told  her  she  must  accuse  no 
one.  When  Montagu  afterwards  pressed  the  question,  she 
shrugged  up  her  shoulders,  but  said  nothing.  She  had  no 
sooner  expired,  than  her  money  and  papers  were  seized  by  her 
husband.  The  latter  were  principally  in  cypher,  and  probably 
baffled  his  curiosity. 

Henrietta  died  at  St.  Cloud  on  the  30th  of  June,  1670, 
having  just  completed  her  twenty-sixth  year.  By  Philip, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  she  was  the  mother  of  three  children — 
Philip,  who  died  young;  Maria,  married  to  Charles  II.,  King 
of  Spain;  and  Anna  Maria,  who  became  the  wife  of  Victor 
Amadeus  II.,  Duke  of  Savoy,  and  afterwards  King  of  Sicily 
and  Sardinia.  This  latter  Princess  was  great-grandmother 
of  Louis  XVI.,  who  was  beheaded  in  1793,  that  unforunate 
monarch  being  the  sixth  in  generation  from  Charles  I. 


DIANE  DE  POITIERS 

(1499—1566) 
MADAME  BOLLY 

DIANE  DE  POITIERS,  eldest  daughter  of  Jean  de 
Poitiers,  seigneur  of  St.  Vallier,  one  of  the  most 
ancient  families  of  Dauphine,  was  born  on  the  3d  of  Septem- 
ber, 1499,  and  not  the  14th  of  March,  1500,  as  Bayle  asserts. 
At  the  age  of  thirteen,  she  was  married  to  Louis  de  Breze, 
Comte  de  Maulevrier,  grand-senechal  of  Normandy,  whose 
mother  was  the  daughter  of  Charles  VII.  and  Agnes  Sorel. 

Diane,  to  whom  the  name  of  Grande-Senechale  was  given, 
lost  her  husband  on  the  23d  of  July,  153 1.  The  conduct  of 
the  grande-senechale  was  beyond  reproach  during  the  life- 
time of  her  husband;  she  also  wished  to  show  her  affection 
for  him  and  to  perpetuate  his  memory.  After  the  death  of 
Louis  de  Breze,  she  erected  a  superb  mausoleum  to  his 
memory  in  the  church  of  Notre-Dame  in  Rouen,  and  she  wore 
mourning  all  her  life ;  for  her  colours,  even  during  the  time 
of  her  greatest  favour,  were  black  and  white.  Diane  was 
thirty-one  years  old  when  she  became  a  widow.  The  Duke 
of  Orleans  was  only  thirteen,  so  that  their  love  (the  period 
of  which  has  never  been  exactly  fixed) ,  must  have  begun  much 
later.  After  the  death  of  the  Dauphin,  Francis,  Diane, 
beloved  by  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  now  become  Dauphin,  found 

287 


288  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

herself  in  collision  with  the  Duchesse  d'Estampes,  mistress 
of  Francis  I.  Each  had  her  party ;  and  the  hatred  of  the  two 
rivals  broke  out  more  than  once  in  scandalous  scenes.  The 
Court  was  divided  between  them.  The  Duchess,  younger 
by  ten  years,  flattered  herself  that  she  was  more  beautiful 
than  Diane  and  ceaselessly  joked  about  her  age,  saying  that 
she  was  born  the  day  that  Diane  was  married.  While  the 
Duchesse  d'Estampes  and  her  partisans  bestowed  the  name 
of  the  "  vieille  ridee  '*  upon  Diane,  the  Dauphin's  passion 
seemed  to  acquire  fresh  strength.  The  beauty  of  Catherine 
de'  Medici,  whom  he  was  about  to  marry,  did  not  lessen  his 
attachment  to  Diane,  and  that  Queen  was  forced  to  house 
the  favourite.  Diane,  who  during  the  life  of  Francis  I.  had 
only  played  a  secondary  part  at  Court,  saw  all  the  courtiers 
gather  around  her  upon  the  death  of  that  Prince,  in  1547' 
From  that  time  she  reigned  in  France  through  Henry.  The 
first  use  she  made  of  her  power  was  to  exile  the  Duchesse 
d'Estampes,  to  whom,  however,  she  left  all  her  wealth,  con- 
tenting herself  with  depriving  of  employment  all  those  who 
had  enjoyed  the  Duchesse's  favour.  Soon  afterward  Diane 
changed  the  entire  council,  ministry,  and  Parliament.  She 
took  the  office  of  first  president  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris 
from  Pierre  Lizet;  and  she  banished  the  chancellor  Olivier, 
from  Court,  and  gave  the  seal  to  Bertrandi.  The  constable 
could  only  retain  his  power  and  his  influence  by  shamelessly 
paying  court  to  the  favourite.  In  October,  1548,  the  King 
gave  her  the  Duchy  of  Valentinois  for  life,  and  she  took  the 
title  of  Duchesse  de  Valentinois.  She  obtained  from  Henry 
II.  the  right  of  confirmation;  for  before  the  office  tax  was 


DIANE    DE    POITIERS. 


DIANE   DE    POITIERS  289 

established,  all  those  who  possessed  offices  in  France  were 
obliged  to  pay  for  their  confirmation  on  the  accession  of  every 
King.  The  people  murmured  at  this  last  favour,  which 
Francis  had  granted  only  to  his  mother.  Diane  used  the 
funds  gained  in  this  way  to  embellish  the  Chateau  d'Anet, 
which  was  celebrated  by  the  poets  under  the  name  of  Dianet. 
Phllibert  Delorme  was  the  architect,  and  even  at  this  distance 
of  time  Anet  still  gives  us  an  idea  of  what  it  was  originally. 

Diane's  age,  which  made  her  sway  over  the  King's  heart 
so  extraordinary,  made  several  of  her  contemporaries  believe 
that  she  had  recourse  to  magic,  in  order  to  hold  him ;  and  they 
brought  up  the  old  story  of  Charlemagne's  enchanted  ring. 
Such  grave  authors  as  Theodore  de  Beze  and  Pasquier  did 
not  scorn  to  adopt  the  popular  prejudice,  and  the  latter  even 
tried  to  prove  it. 

Diane's  true  source  of  magic  was  in  the  charm  of  her 
mind,  her  talents,  and  her  grace ;  the  praises  of  the  wits  that 
she  protected  prove  that  she  was  sensible  to  the  pleasures  of 
poetry  and  letters ;  the  Muses  only  offer  their  incense  to  those 
who  understand  them,  and  mere  recognition  would  not  have 
inspired  the  verses  of  Du  Bellay,  Ronsard,  and  Pelletier. 
Moreover,  Diane's  beauty  lasted  for  a  long  time;  she  put 
forth  every  effort  to  retard  the  work  of  years,  and  she  suc- 
ceeded. She  was  never  ill;  and  even  in  the  coldest  weather 
she  washed  her  face  in  rain-water.  Waking  every  morning 
at  six  o'clock,  she  mounted  her  horse  and  rode  one  or  two 
leagues;  and  on  her  return  went  back  to  bed  and  read  there 
until  noon. 

Her  features  were  regular ;  her  complexion  the  clearest  and 


290  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

most  beautiful  that  was  ever  seen;  and  her  curh'ng  hair  as 
black  as  jet.  Brantome,  who  saw  her  shortly  before  her 
death,  assures  us  that  she  was  still  beautiful.  Mezeray,  who 
treats  all  the  favourites  of  our  Kings  badly,  does  not  spare 
Diane.  The  President  de  Thou  attributes  to  her  all  the  mis- 
fortunes of  Henry  XL's  reign,  the  breaking  of  the  truce  with 
Spain,  which  brought  about  the  loss  of  the  Battle  of  St. 
Quentin,  and  caused  infinite  evils  in  France,  and  the  persecu- 
tions of  the  Protestants.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  from  the 
hatred  that  is  manifested  against  her  by  the  Calvinist  writers, 
that  Diane  had  some  share  in  inspiring  Henry  with  those 
cruel  ideas  of  intolerance  that  were  pushed  to  the  extreme 
during  his  reign.  A  declared  enemy  to  reform,  in  her  will, 
Diane  disinherited  her  daughters  in  case  they  embraced  the 
new  opinions.  It  is  pretended,  but  not  proved,  that  the 
Duchesse  de  Valentinois  and  Henry  II.  had  a  daughter,  and 
that  this  Prince  wished  to  make  her  legitimate,  which  Diane 
proudly  opposed. 

Henry  II.,  wounded  at  a  tournament,  died  on  the  lOth  of 
July,  1559.  As  soon  as  the  Prince's  condition  was  hopeless, 
Catherine  de'  Medici  ordered  the  Duchesse  de  Valentinois  to 
retire,  and  demanded  the  return  of  the  crown  jewels. 

"  Is  the  King  dead  ?  "  Diane  asked  the  messenger. 

"  No,  Madame,"  replied  the  latter;  "  but  he  will  not  sur- 
vive the  day." 

**  I  have  no  longer  a  master,"  she  replied,  "  my  enemies 
know  that  I  do  not  fear  them;  and  when  this  Prince  is  no 
longer,  I  shall  be  too  much  occupied  with  grief  for  his  loss 
to  be  sensible  of  the  trouble  that  they  wish  to  give  me." 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  291 

Diane  knew  the  Court  too  well  to  believe  that  recognition 
would  count  against  disgrace;  she  felt  that  the  greater  her 
influence  had  been,  the  more  terrible  her  fall  would  be. 
Indeed,  all  her  friends  had  abandoned  her,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Constable  de  Montmorenci,  who  owed  to  her  his  recall 
to  Court. 

As  soon  as  the  King  had  expired,  Diane  retired  to  Anet, 
where  she  died  on  the  22d  of  April,  1566,  aged  sixty-six 
years. 

The  King  wore  Diane's  colours  all  his  life.  Some  authors 
maintain  that  the  motto  of  this  Prince :  "  Donee  totum 
impleat  orhem"  and  the  crescent  that  he  had  engraved  upon 
his  coins,  were  a  token  of  his  love  for  Diane,  to  whose  name 
this  motto  alludes.  There  are  also  medals  upon  which  the 
Duchesse  de  Valentinois  is  represented  with  her  foot  upon  a 
Cupid,  with  these  words:  *'  Omnium  victorem  vici  ^^  (I  have 
vanquished  the  victor  of  all). 

She  founded  many  hospitals,  and  established  a  refuge  for 
a  dozen  poor  widows  at  Anet.  Her  tomb  of  marble  with  her 
statue  was  in  a  chapel  at  the  Chateau  d*Anet ;  it  is  now  in  the 
Museum  des  monuments  Frangais, 


MADAME  DES  URSINS 

(About  1640—1722) 
SUTHERLAND  MENZIES 

yi  T  the  outset  of  that  historic  period  known  as  the  War 
yV  of  the  Spanish  Succession  a  remarkable  feature  pre- 
sents itself  in  the  fact  that  two  women  were  chosen  to  be,  as 
It  were,  its  advanced  sentinels — the  one  of  the  Austrian  party 
in  England,  the  other  of  the  French  party  in  Spain.  These 
were  Lady  Churchill  (wife  of  the  famous  soldier,  Marl- 
borough), first  lady  of  the  bed-chamber  to  our  Queen  Anne, 
and  the  Princess  des  Ursins,  fulfilling,  under  the  title  of 
Camerara-Mayor,  the  same  functions  for  the  new  Queen  of 
Spain,  Marie-Louise  of  Savoy,  first  wife  of  Philip  V. 

In  the  brilliant  daughter  of  the  Due  de  Noirmoutier, 
heiress  of  a  name  mixed  up  with  all  the  struggles  of  the 
Fronde,  we  behold  a  last  survivor  of  the  Regency,  and  the 
dramatic  vicissitudes  of  a  life  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of 
political  power,  have  blinded  the  mental  vision  of  posterity 
to  the  grandeur  of  a  work  of  which  that  eminent  woman  was 
the  principal  instrument.  Proud  and  restless,  as  largely 
dominated  as  any  other  of  her  sex  by  the  vivacity  of  her 
preferences  and  her  dislikes,  but  full  of  sound  sense  in  her 
views  and  in  the  firmness  of  her  designs,  the  skilful  adviser  of 
a  King  and  Queen  of  Spain  has  not  received  at  the  hands  of 

292 


MADAME    DES    URSINS. 


MADAME   DES    URSINS  293 

posterity  the  merit  due  to  an  idea  pursued  with  a  wonderful 
perseverance  amidst  obstacles  which  would  have  daunted  men 
even  of  the  strongest  resolution.  Because  her  public  career 
ended  in  a  catastrophe,  popular  opinion,  which  readily  follows 
success,  considers  as  merely  abortive  that  long  career  during 
which  her  hand  sustained  upon  the  brow  of  a  French  prince 
the  tottering  crown  against  which  the  arms  of  Europe,  the 
distrust  of  Spain,  and  the  discouragement  of  France  vied  in 
conspiring. 

Yet  in  her  girlhood,  during  the  last  days  of  the  Fronde, 
Marie  Anne  de  la  Tremouille  must  early  have  observed  how 
greatly  beauty  can  aid  ambition,  and  how,  by  tact,  endow- 
ments the  most  frivolous  may  be  brought  to  the  service  of 
interests  the  most  serious  and  complicated.  Married  in  1650 
to  the  Prince  de  Chalais,  of  the  house  of  Talleyrand,  she 
conceived  for  her  young  husband  the  sole  passion  to  be  noted 
throughout  a  life  in  which,  especially  during  its  later  period, 
love  figured  only  in  the  dullest  of  hues.  This  marriage  took 
place  during  the  wars  of  the  second  Fronde,  and  at  an  epoch 
when  a  rage  for  duelling,  the  anarchical  and  ruthless  effect  of 
Frenchmen's  ideas  touching  the  "  point  of  honour,"  had 
infused  a  new  element  into  the  spirit  of  party,  and  had  become 
a  veritable  mania.  It  chanced  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  those 
duels  in  1663 — that  of  the  two  brothers  Frette — ^wherein  four 
fought  on  either  side,  and  in  which  the  Due  de  Beauvilliers 
was  slain,  that  the  Prince  de  Chalais  figured  as  one  of  the 
champions.  The  law  against  duelling,  enforced  by  Henri 
Quatre,  and  revived  with  so  much  rigour  by  Richelieu  against 
the  father  of  the  famous  Marshal  de  Luxembourg,  and  from 


294  MADAME    DES    URSINS 

which  practice  the  blood  of  Bouteville  had  not  completely 
delivered  France,  was  still  in  full  vigour.  The  consequences 
being  so  terrible,  that  the  Prince  de  Chalais,  to  place  himself 
beyond  reach  of  them,  was  compelled  to  seek  safety  In  flight. 
He  succeeded  in  escaping  to  Spain,  whither  his  wife  followed 
him. 

During  this  brief  period  of  her  union  with  the  Prince  de 
Chalais,  whom  she  adored,  Marie  Anne  de  la  Tremoullle 
had  shone  as  conspicuously  by  her  wit  as  by  her  beauty  in  the 
famous  circle  of  the  Hotel  d'Albret,  where  she  first  met 
Madame  Scarron,  whose  destiny  it  was  later  on  in  life — as 
Madame  de  Malntenon — to  be  so  closely  allied  with  the 
Princess. 

Thus  united  by  ties  of  the  tenderest  affection,  scarcely 
had  the  young  couple  quitted  Madrid,  after  a  three- 
years'  sojourn,  to  establish  themselves  at  Rome,  when  the 
death  of  M.  de  Chalais  left  her  a  childless  widow,  without 
protectioi),  and  almost  destitute — a  prey  to  grief  apparently 
the  most  profound,  and  to  anxieties  concerning  the  future 
readily  conceivable. 

Madame  de  Chalais  was  then  in  the  plenitude  of  that 
attractive  beauty  so  closely  observed  and  described  In  all  its 
most  delicate  shades  by  the  graphic  pen  of  the  Due  de  Saint- 
Simon,  when  at  a  more  advanced  period  of  her  life,  but  on 
which  beauty,  by  a  miracle  of  art  and  nature,  the  wasting 
hand  of  time  had  as  yet  scarcely  brought  a  blemish. 

The  first  years  of  her  widowhood,  passed  in  a  convent, 
were  marked  by  the  liveliest  sorrow.  By  degrees,  however, 
love  of  society  resumed  its  sway  over  her,  and  she  reappeared 


MADAME   DES   URSINS  295 

therein  with  all  her  wonted  attractiveness,  markedly  patron- 
ised in  the  highest  circles  of  Roman  society  by  Cardinal 
d'Estrees,  the  French  ambassador — assuredly  not  without 
design,  since  at  that  same  time  that  high  functionary  so  dis- 
tinguished her,  he  directed  the  attention  of  Louis  XIV.  to 
the  wit  and  capacity  of  the  charming  widow.  It  was,  there- 
fore, in  great  measure  with  a  political  purpose,  and  by  the 
diplomatic  tact  of  the  two  brothers  d'Estrees,  that  the  second 
marriage  of  the  Princess  de  Chalais  with  Flavio  Orsini,  Duke 
di  Bracciano,  himself  a  widower,  was  arranged  (1675). 
Owning  as  its  mistress  a  woman  so  abundantly  charming,  the 
Palazzo  Orsini  became  more  than  ever  the  rendez-vous  of  the 
best  society.  The  Duchess  di  Bracciano  held  therein  an 
actual  Court,  as  numerous  also  as  it  was  distinguished. 

At  the  moment  when  the  Court  of  Versailles  very 
earnestly  sought  the  support  of  the  Princess  des  Ursins,  the 
important  business  of  the  Spanish  succession  engrossed  the 
attention  of  all  the  politicians  of  Europe. 

It  became  necessary  to  choose  a  Camerara-Mayor  for  the 
young  Queen.  Madame  des  Ursins  had  given  Louis  XIV. 
ample  proof  of  her  devotion;  she  had  in  some  sort  enchained 
him:  she  could,  therefore,  with  so  much  the  more  security 
invoke  the  gratitude  of  his  Court,  which  feeling,  under  exist- 
ing circumstances,  it  was  advisable  for  the  cabinet  of  Ver- 
sailles to  make  manifest.  Thoroughly  secure  in  that  quar- 
ter, she  wrote  direct  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy, — Philip  V.,  mak- 
ing his  father-in-law  comprehend  that  it  was  the  wish  of 
France  to  see  her  installed  in  such  post, — and  the  Duke  of 
Savoy    referred    the    matter    to    Louis    XIV.     From    that 


296  MADAME  DES    URSINS 

moment  her  elevation  was  certain.     Such  choice  was  the  con- 
summation of  French  policy. 

There  is  something  very  striking,  indeed,  in  that  indomit- 
able resolution  one  day  to  govern  Spain,  conceived  and 
adopted  so  far  from  the  theatre  of  events — to  exercise  the 
functions  of  Camerara-Mayor  to  a  queen  of  thirteen  years  of 
age,  when  to  obtain  that  exalted  guardianship  in  Court  and 
State,  every  ambitious  heart  was  throbbing  from  the  Alps  to 
the  Pyrenees.  Yet  Madame  des  Urslns  Importuned  no  one, 
for  no  one  had  thought  of  her,  Louis  XIV.  no  more  than  his 
ministers,  the  Duke  of  Savoy  no  more  than  the  King  of 
Spain;  but  that  remarkable  woman  had  mentally  aimed  at 
that  as  the  supreme  object  and  end  of  her  aspirations.  For 
its  realisation  she  combined  her  measures,  therefore,  with  an 
activity  so  ardent,  with  an  accuracy  of  perception  so  marvel- 
lous through  the  mesh  of  intrigues  which  spread  from  Ver- 
sailles to  Turin  and  to  Madrid,  that  she  succeeded  in  get- 
ting herself  accepted  simultaneously  by  the  three  courts, 
through  letting  them  think  that  the  choice  of  her  individ- 
uality had  been  for  each  of  them  the  effect  of  a  spontaneous 
inspiration.  It  was,  therefore,  with  a  paraphernalia  almost 
regal  that  Madame  des  Urslns  set  forth  to  conduct  the 
Princess  of  Savoy  to  her  husband.  Our  heroine  was  then 
in  her  fifty-ninth  year  (1701),  according  to  most  author- 
ities ;  in  her  sixty-second,  according  to  others ;  and  either  age 
would  have  been  for  any  one  else  the  period  for  retreat.  But 
by  the  rare  privilege  of  a  singular  energy,  physical  and 
moral,  still  beautiful,  and  having  as  yet  only  prepared  her- 
self for  playing  the  grand  part  of  her  lifers  drama,  she  was 


MADAME    DES    URSINS  297 

about  to  make  that  advanced  age  a  point  of  departure  in  her 
militant  career,  the  outset  of  a  new  existence.  Her  ambition, 
moreover,  could  not  have  had  a  more  brilliant  and  legitimate 
aim  than  that  of  associating  herself  in  the  glorious  task  of 
France  become  the  instructress  of  Spain;  and  Madame  des 
Ursins,  who  joined  to  her  own  the  aspirations  of  the  other 
sex,  entered  upon  her  new  mission  with  a  zeal,  an  ardour, 
and  an  activity  more  than  virile. 

Early  in  17 14  died  very  suddenly,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
six,  Marie  Louise  of  Savoy,  her  delicate  frame  worn  out  by 
an  ardent  temperament,  which  had  sustained  it  whilst  the 
storm  raged,  and  which  declined  when  the  breath  of  the 
hurricane  had  ceased  to  kindle  it  further.  The  remains  of 
the  young  Queen  had  scarcely  descended  into  the  vaults  of 
the  Escurial  ere  the  nation  demanded  to  know  who  was  to  be 
the  new  queen-consort;  and  the  same  question  was  addressed 
to  Madame  des  Ursins  by  the  Court  of  Versailles. 

She  was  anxious  to  find  a  consort  who  could  replace  in 
her  interests  Marie  Louise,  and  restore  her  waning  influence. 
Her  incertitude  was  great :  she  felt  truly  that  in  spite  of  past 
services  her  future  fate  depended  upon  her  choice.  At 
length  she  cast  her  eyes  upon  Elizabeth  Farnese,  daughter  of 
the  last  Duke  of  Parma,  and  niece  of  the  then  existing  Duke, 
and  thought  that  gratitude  for  such  an  extraordinary  turn 
of  fortune  would  forever  secure  the  attachment  of  a  princess 
who,  without  her  influence,  could  never  have  had  pretensions 
to  such  a  union.  But  she  was  anxious  to  ascertain  whether 
Elizabeth  Farnese  was  one  of  those  who  would  submit  to  be 
ruled,  and  she  opened  her  mind  upon  the  subject  to  a  man 


298  MADAME    DBS   URSINS 

then  obscure  but  afterwards  celebrated — Alberoni,  who  had 
been  sent  as  consular  agent  from  Parma  to  Madrid.  He 
had  frequent  conversations  with  the  great  favourite,  and 
readily  succeeded  in  insinuating  himself  into  her  good  graces. 
He  described  the  Princess  of  Parma  as  simple-minded, 
religious,  ignorant  of  the  world  from  which  she  had  always 
lived  secluded, — in  short,  perfectly  fitting  to  forward  the 
design  of  the  Princess.  In  making  such  statements  he  reck- 
oned at  the  same  time  upon  pleasing  his  own  Court  and 
bringing  about  the  fall  of  Madame  des  Ursins;  for  he  knew 
well  that  Elizabeth,  whose  character  was  very  different  from 
that  which  he  had  represented,  would  not  submit  to  be 
governed  by  any  one. 

Whether  the  indiscretions  of  others  had  revealed  to  her 
the  true  character  of  Elizabeth  Farnese,  whether  she  had 
foreseen  the  manoeuvres  of  the  Inquisition  with  the  future 
Queen,  whether  she  had  dreaded  the  anger  of  Louis  XIV., 
who  had  not  been  consulted,  whether  the  triumphant  attitude 
of  her  enemies  had  opened  her  eyes,  certain  it  is,  however, 
that  the  Princess  attempted  to  break  off  the  match.  But  it 
was  in  vain  that  she  despatched  a  confidential  agent  to  Parma 
for  that  purpose.  On  his  arrival,  the  messenger  was  thrown 
into  prison  and  threatened  with  death,  and  so  failed  in  his 
mission.  The  marriage  by  procuration  was  celebrated  on  the 
1 6th  of  August,  1 7 14.  That  unskilful  and  tardy  opposition 
released  the  Princess  Farnese  from  all  feelings  of  gratitude, 
furnished  the  enemies  of  Madame  des  Ursins  with  a  deadly 
weapon,  by  appearing  to  justify  their  accusations  in  a  strik- 
ing manner,  and  so  prepared  her  ruin. 


MADAME    DES    URSINS  299 

Her  disgrace  was  prompt,  cruel,  decisive.  The  plan  had 
evidently  been  concerted  long  beforehand.*  Confirmed  in 
her  design  by  her  interview  at  Saint  Jean  de  Lux  with  the 
Queen  Dowager,  widow  of  Charles  II.,  and  at  Pampeluna 
with  Alberoni,  Elizabeth  held  on  her  way  to  Madrid.  The 
King  advanced  to  meet  her  on  the  road  to  Burgos,  and 
Madame  des  Ursins  went  on  before  as  far  as  the  little  town 
of  Xadraque.  When  the  Queen  arrived  there  on  the  23d 
of  December,  1714,  Madame  des  Ursins  received  her  with 
the  customary  reverences.  Afterwards,  having  followed  her 
into  a  cabinet,  she  perceived  her  instantly  change  her  tone. 
By  some  it  is  said  that  Madame  des  Ursins,  being  desirous  of 
finding  fault  with  something  about  the  Queen's  head-dress, 
whilst  she  was  at  her  toilette,  the  latter  treated  it  as  an 
impertinence,  and  immediately  flew  into  a  rage.  Others 
relate  (and  these  different  accounts  tally  with  each  other  in 
the  main)  that  Madame  des  Ursins  having  protested  her 
devotedness  to  the  new  Queen  and  assured  Her  Majesty 
"  that  she  might  always  reckon  upon  finding  her  stand 
between  the  King  and  herself,  to  keep  matters  in  the  state 
in  which  they  ought  to  be  on  her  account,  and  procuring  her 
all  the  gratifications  which  she  had  a  right  to  expect — the 
Queen,  who  had  listened  quietly  enough  so  far,  took  fire  at 
these  last  words,  and  replied  that  she  did  not  want  any  one 

*  "  I  only  ask  one  thing  of  you,"  wrote  Elizabeth  Farnese  to  Philip 
v.,  "  that  is  the  dismissal  of  Madame  des  Ursins " ;  and  the  King 
had  replied:  "At  least  do  not  spare  your  blow;  for  if  she 
only  talk  to  you  for  a  couple  of  hours  she  will  enchain  you, 
and  hinder  us  from  sleeping  together,  as  happened  to  the  late 
Queen." — DucLOS. 


300  MADAME    DES    URSINS 

near  the  King ;  that  it  was  an  impertinence  to  make  her  such 
an  offer,  and  that  it  was  presuming  too  much  to  dare  to 
address  her  in  such  a  fashion."  This  much  is  certain,  that 
the  Queen,  outrageously  thrusting  Madame  des  Ursins  out 
of  her  cabinet,  summoned  M.  d'Amezaga,  lieutenant  of  the 
body-guard,  who  commanded  the  escort,  and  ordered  him  to 
arrest  the  Princess,  to  make  her  get  immediately  into  a  car- 
riage, and  have  her  driven  to  the  French  frontiers  by  the 
shortest  road,  and  without  halting  anywhere.  As  d'Amezaga 
hesitated,  the  Queen  asked  him  whether  he  had  not  received 
a  special  command  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  obey  her  in 
everything  and  without  reserve — ^which  was  quite  true. 
Madame  des  Ursins  was  arrested,  therefore,  and  carried  off 
instantaneously,  just  as  she  was,  in  her  full  dress  of  cere- 
mony, and  hurried  across  Spain  as  fast  as  six  horses  could 
drag  her.  It  was  mid-winter — ^no  provisions  to  be  found  in 
the  inns  of  Spain;  no  beds;  not  a  change  of  clothes — the 
ground  covered  with  frost  and  snow;  and  the  Princess  was 
then  in  her  seventy-second  year.  A  lady's  maid  and  two 
officers  of  the  guard  accompanied  her  in  the  carriage. 

Having  reached  St.  Jean  de  Lux,  Madame  des  Ursins 
wrote  to  Versailles,  and  shortly  afterwards  despatched  thither 
one  of  her  nephews.  The  Great  Monarch  was  compelled 
to  be  guided  by  the  decision  of  his  grandson;  Madame  de 
Malntenon  replied  by  evasive  compliments.  The  Princess 
could  then  see  that  all  was  at  an  end,  as  regarded  her  resump- 
tion of  power.  She  pursued  her  way  through  France  and 
arrived  in  Paris.  The  King  received  her  coldly;  her  stay 
in  France  was  not  prolonged  without  difficulty.    Moreover, 


MADAME    DES    URSINS  301 

she  saw  the  approaching  decease  of  Louis  XIV.,  and  a 
Regency  under  the  Duke  of  Orleans.  Their  old  quar- 
rels, the  open  hatred  which  had  since  existed  between  them, 
causing  her  uneasiness  and  misgivings,  she  resolved  to  quit 
France.  She  wished  to  visit  the  Low  Countries,  but  was 
not  permitted.  She  proceeded  to  Savoy,  thence  to  Genoa, 
and  at  last  returned  to  Rome,  where  she  once  more  fixed  her 
abode.  There  a  suitable  existence  was  secured  to  her,  for 
Philip  kept  his  promise,  and  caused  her  pension  to  be  punctu- 
ally paid. 

Habituated  to  the  stir  of  courts  and  the  excitement  of  state 
affairs,  she  could  not  condemn  herself,  notwithstanding  her 
age,  to  an  absolute  repose.  Prince  James  Stuart,  called  the 
Pretender,  having  withdrawn  to  Rome,  Madame  des  Ursins 
attached  herself  to  him  and  his  fortunes ;  she  did  the  honours 
of  his  house:  and  thus  she  remained  until  her  death,  which 
took  place  December  5,  1722,  at  the  age  of  four-score  and 
upwards. 

"  Rather  tall  than  short  of  stature,  she  was  a  brunette 
with  blue  eyes,  whose  expression  instantly  responded  to  every- 
thing that  pleased  her ;  with  a  perfect  shape,  a  lovely  bosom, 
and  a  countenance  which,  without  regularity  of  feature,  was 
more  charming  even  than  the  purely  symmetrical.  Her  air 
was  extremely  noble,  and  there  was  something  majestic  in 
her  whole  demeanour,  and  a  grace  so  natural  and  continual 
in  all  she  did,  even  in  things  the  most  trivial  and  indifferent, 
that  I  have  never  seen  anyone  approach  to,  either  in  form  or 
mind.  Her  wit  was  copious  and  of  all  kinds.  She  was  flat- 
tering, caressing,   insinuating,  moderate,   desirous  to  please 


302  MADAME    DES    URSINS 

for  pleasing*s  sake,  and  with  charms  irresistible  when  she 
strove  to  persuade  and  win  over.  Accompanying  all  this, 
she  possessed  a  grandeur  that  encouraged  rather  than  repelled. 
A  delightful  tone  of  conversation,  inexhaustible  and  always 
amusing — for  she  had  seen  many  countries  and  peoples.  A 
voice  and  way  of  speaking  extremely  agreeable  and  full  of 
sweetness.  She  had  read  much  and  reflected  much.  She 
knew  how  to  choose  the  best  society,  how  to  receive  it,  and 
could  even  have  held  a  Court;  was  polite  and  distinguished; 
and,  above  all,  careful  never  to  take  a  step  in  advance  with- 
out dignity  and  discretion.  She  was  eminently  fitted  for 
intrigue,  in  which,  from  taste,  she  had  passed  her  time  at 
Rome.  With  much  ambition,  but  of  that  vast  kind  far 
above  her  sex  and  the  common  run  of  men — a  desire  to 
occupy  a  great  position  and  to  govern.  An  inclination  to 
gallantry  and  personal  vanity  were  her  foibles,  and  these 
clung  to  her  until  her  latest  days;  consequently  she  dressed 
in  a  way  that  no  longer  became  her,  and  as  she  advanced  in 
life  departed  further  from  propriety  in  this  particular.  She 
was  an  ardent  and  excellent  friend — of  a  friendship  that 
time  and  absence  never  enfeebled ;  and  therefore  an  implacable 
enemy,  pursuing  her  hatred  even  to  the  infernal  regions. 
Whilst  caring  little  for  the  means  by  which  she  gained  her 
ends,  she  tried  as  much  as  possible  to  reach  them  by  honest 
means.  Secret,  not  only  for  herself,  but  for  her  friends, 
she  was  yet  of  a  decorous  gaiety,  and  so  governed  her 
humours,  that  at  all  times  and  in  everything  she  was  mistress 
of  herself." 

Such  was  the  Princess  des  Ursins,  as  sketched  by  that 


MADAME   DES   URSINS  303 

painstaking  limner,  Saint-Simon ;  throughout  whose  Memoirs 
many  other  scattered  traits  are  to  be  found  of  this  celebrated 
woman,  who  so  long  and  so  publicly  governed  the  Court  and 
Crown  of  Spain,  and  whose  fate  it  was  to  make  so  much  stir 
in  the  world  alike  by  her  reign  and  her  fall. 


MADAME     DU    BARRY 

(1746—1793) 
ALPHONSE     DE     LAMARTINE 

MADAME  DU  BARRY,  mistress  of  Louis  XV.,  died 
at  a  short  interval  from  Bailly.  This  woman  had 
as  a  child  commenced  the  traffic  of  her  charms.  Her  marvel- 
lous beauty  had  attracted  the  notice  of  the  purveyors  to  the 
King's  pleasures.  They  had  raised  her  from  obscure  vice 
to  offer  to  her  the  scandal  of  crowned  infamy.  Louis  XV. 
had  formed  of  the  rank  of  his  mistresses  a  kind  of  institution 
of  his  Court.  Mademoiselle  Lange  Vaubernier,  under  the 
name  of  Madame  du  Barry,  had  succeeded  to  Madame  de 
Pompadour.  Louis  XV.  required  the  sort  of  scandal  to 
season  his  palled  appetite.  Therein  consisted  his  majesty. 
The  only  respect  which  he  imposed  upon  his  Court  was  the 
respect  of  his  vices.  Madame  du  Barry  had  reigned  under 
his  name.  The  nation,  it  must  be  owned,  had  most  shame- 
fully submitted  to  this  yoke.  The  nobility,  the  ministry,  the 
clergy,  philosophers,  all  had  adulated  the  idol  of  the  King. 
Louis  XIV.  had  prepared  their  minds  to  this  servitude  by 
causing  his  courtiers  to  adore  the  despotism  of  his  amours. 

Still  young  at  the  death  of  Louis  XV.,  Madame  du  Barry 
had  been  sequestered  for  some  months  in  a  convent,  for  the 

304 


MAIMME    DU    BARRY. 


MADAME    DU    BARRY  305 

sake  of  decenqr — a  characteristic  of  the  new  reign.  Soon 
freed  from  this  confinement,  she  had  lived  in  a  splendid 
retreat  near  Paris — the  Pavilion  de  Luciennes — on  the 
borders  of  the  forest  of  St.  Germain.  Immense  riches,  the 
gifts  of  Louis  XV.,  rendered  her  exile  almost  as  brilliant  as 
her  reign.  The  old  Duke  de  Brissac  remained  attached  to 
the  favourite.  He  loved  her  still  for  her  beauty,  at  the  time 
when  others  loved  her  for  her  rank.  Madame  du  Barry- 
abhorred  the  Revolution,  that  reign  of  the  people  who 
despised  courtesans  and  who  spoke  of  virtue.  Although 
repulsed  from  the  court  of  Louis  XVL  and  by  Marie 
Antoinette,  she  had  lamented  their  misfortunes,  deplored 
their  fate,  and  had  devoted  herself  to  the  cause  of  the  throne 
and  of  emigration. 

After  the  lOth  of  August  she  made  a  journey  to  England. 
In  London  she  wore  mourning  for  Louis  XVI.,  and  con- 
secrated her  immense  fortune  to  relieve  the  miseries  of  the 
emigrants  in  exile.  But  the  greater  part  of  her  riches  had 
been  secretly  buried  by  her  and  the  Duke  de  Brissac  at  the 
foot  of  a  tree  in  her  park  at  Luciennes.  After  the  death  of 
the  Duke  de  Brissac,  massacred  at  Versailles,  Madame  du 
Barry  did  not  desire  to  conjRde  to  any  one  the  secret  of  her 
treasure.  She  resolved  to  return  to  France,  to  disinter  her 
diamonds,  and  carry  them  to  London. 

She  had  confided  in  her  absence  the  care  and  administra- 
tion of  Luciennes  to  a  young  negro,  named  Zamore.  She 
had  brought  up  this  child,  through  a  womanish  caprice,  as 
one  rears  a  domestic  animal.  She  caused  herself  to  be 
painted  by  the  side  of  this  black,  to  resemble  In  her  portraits, 


3o6  MADAME    DU    BARRY 

by  the  contrast  of  countenance  and  colour,  the  Ventian  count- 
esses  of  Titian.  She  had  conceived  for  this  negro  the 
tenderness  of  a  mother.  Zamore  was  ungrateful  and  cruel. 
He  was  intoxicated  with  revolutionary  liberty.  He  had 
caught  the  fever  of  the  people.  Ingratitude  appeared  to  him 
the  virtue  of  the  oppressed.  He  betrayed  his  benefactress; 
he  denounced  her  treasures;  he  delivered  her  to  the  Revolu- 
tionary committee  of  Luciennes,  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
Madame  du  Barry,  elevated  and  enriched  by  favouritism, 
perished  by  a  favourite.  Judged  and  condemned  without 
discussion,  shown  to  the  people  as  one  of  the  stains  of  the 
throne,  of  which  it  was  necessary  to  purify  the  air  of  the 
republic,  she  went  to  death  amid  the  yells  of  the  populace 
and  the  contempt  of  the  indifferent.  She  was  still  in  the 
brilliancy  of  hardly  matured  age.  Her  beauty,  yielded  to 
the  executioner,  was  her  crime  in  the  sight  of  the  crowd. 
She  was  dressed  in  white.  Her  black  hair,  cut  behind  the 
head  by  the  scissors  of  the  executioner,  left  her  neck  exposed. 
Her  locks  in  front  of  the  head,  which  the  executioner  had 
not  shortened,  floated  and  covered  her  eyes  and  her  cheeks: 
she  lifted  her  head  and  threw  them  back,  in  order  that  her 
countenance  might  move  the  people.  She  did  not  cease  to 
invoke  pity,  in  the  most  humiliating  terms.  Tears  flowed 
incessantly  from  her  eyes  upon  her  bosom.  Her  piercing 
cries  prevailed  over  the  noise  of  the  wheels  and  the  clamour 
of  the  multitude.  It  seemed  as  if  the  knife  struck  this 
woman  beforehand,  and  deprived  her  a  thousand  times  of 
life. 

"Life!  life!"  she  cried;  "life  for  my  repentance! — life 


MADAME    DU    BARRY  3^7 

for  all  my  devotion  to  the  Republic! — ^life  for  all  my  riches 
to  the  nation !  " 

The  people  laughed  and  shrugged  their  shoulders.  They 
showed  her,  by  signs,  the  pillow  of  the  guillotine,  upon 
which  her  charming  head  was  about  to  sleep.  The  passage 
of  the  courtesan  to  the  scaffold  was  but  one  lamentation. 
Under  the  knife  she  still  wept.  The  Court  had  enervated 
her  soul.  She  alone,  among  all  the  women  executed,  died 
a  coward,  because  she  died  neither  for  opinion,  for  virtue, 
nor  for  love,  but  for  vice.  She  dishonoured  the  scaffold  as 
she  had  dishonoured  the  throne. 


MARGARET  DOUGLAS,  COUNTESS  OF 
LENNOX 

(1515—1578) 

T.  F.  HENDERSON 

1ADY  MARGARET  DOUGLAS,  Countess  of  Len- 
^nox,  mother  of  Lord  Darnley,  was  the  daughter  of 
Margaret  Tudor,  daughter  of  Henry  VII.,  and  Queen 
Dowager  of  James  IV.  by  her  second  marriage  to  Archibald, 
sixth  Earl  of  Angus.  She  was  born  October  8,  15 15,  at 
Harbottle  Castle,  Northumberland,  then  garrisoned  by  Lord 
Dacre,  her  mother  being  at  the  time  in  flight  to  England  on 
account  of  the  proscription  of  the  Earl  of  Angus.  The  next 
day  she  was  christened  by  the  name  of  Margaret  "  with 
such  provisions  as  couthe  or  might  be  had  in  this  baron  and 
wyld  country."  In  May,  she  was  brought  by  her  mother 
to  London  and  lodged  in  the  palace  of  Greenwich,  where 
the  young  Princess  Mary,  four  months  her  junior,  was  also 
staying.  In  the  following  May,  she  accompanied  her  mothei 
to  Scotland,  but  when  her  parents  separated  three  years  after- 
wards, Angus,  recognising  the  importance  of  having  a  near 
heiress  to  both  thrones  under  his  own  authority,  took  her 
from  her  mother  and  placed  her  in  the  stronghold  of  Tantal- 
lon.  It  is  probable  that  she  accompanied  Angus  in  his  exile 
into  France  in  1521.  When  Angus  was  driven  from  power 
in  1528,  he  sought  refuge  for  his  daughter  in  Norham  Castle. 

308 


COUNTESS    OF   LENNOX, 


COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX  309 

Thence  she  was  removed  to  the  care  of  Thomas  Strangeways 
at  Berwick,   Cardinal  Wolsey,  her  godfather,  undertaking 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  her  maintenance.     The  fall  of  Wol- 
sey shortly  afterwards  prevented  the  fulfilment  of  this  prom- 
ise, and  Strangeways,  after  bringing  her  to  London,  in  1531, 
wrote  to  Cromwell  on  August  i  that,  if  the  King  would 
finish  the  hospital  of  Jesus  Christ  at  Branforth,  he  would 
consider  himself  well  paid  "  In  bringing  to  London  and  long 
keeping "  of  her,  and   "  for  all  his  services  In  the  King's 
wars."     Shortly  after  her  arrival  she  was  placed  by  Henry 
in    the   establishment   at   Beaulieu   of   the    Princess    Mary, 
with  whom  she  formed  an  Intimate  friendship.     This  friend' 
ship  does  not  seem  to  have  suffered  any  diminution,  even 
when    the    Lady    Margaret,    on    the    birth    of    Elizabeth, 
was  made  her  first  lady  of  honour,  and  succeeded  In  winning 
the  favour  of  Anne  Boleyn.     Castillon,  writing  to  Francis 
L  of  France,  March   16,   1534,  reports  that  Henry  has  a 
niece  whom  he  keeps  with  the  Queen,  his  wife,  and  treats 
like  a  queen's  daughter,  and  that  if  any  proposition  were 
made  to  her  he  would  make  her  dowry  worth  that  of  his 
daughter  Mary.     The  ambassador  adds  that,  "  the  lady  is 
beautiful  and  highly  esteemed  here."     By  the  act  passed  after 
the  death  of  Anne  Boleyn,  declaring  the  Princesses  Mary 
and  Elizabeth  illegitimate,  the  Lady  Margaret  was  neces- 
sarily advanced  to  the  position  of  the  lady  of  highest  rank  In 
England;  and  although  her  half-brother,  James  V.  of  Scot- 
land, was  now  the  nearest  heir  to  the  English  throne,  her 
claims,  from  the  fact  that  she  had  been  born  in  England, 
and  was  under  Henry's  protection,  were  supposed  completely 


3IO  COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX 

to  outrival  his.  Through  the  countenance  of  Anne  Boleyn 
an  attachment  had  sprung  up  between  the  Lady  Margaret 
and  Anne  Boleyn's  uncle,  Lord  Thomas  Howard,  and  a 
private  betrothal  had  taken  place  between  them  just  before 
the  fall  of  the  Queen.  This  being  discovered.  Lady  Mar- 
garet was  on  June  8  sent  to  the  Tower.  As  she  there  fell 
sick  of  intermittent  fever,  she  was  removed  to  less  rigorous 
confinement  in  the  Abbey  of  Syon,  near  Isleworth,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Thames,  but  did  not  receive  her  liberty  till 
October  29,  1557,  two  days  before  her  lover  died  in  the 
Tower. 

The  birth  of  Prince  Edward  altered  her  position. 
Henry,  conscious  of  the  questionable  legitimacy  of  the  Prince, 
resolved  to  place  her  in  the  same  category  in  regard  to  legiti- 
macy as  the  other  two  princesses.  He  obtained  sufficient 
evidence  in  Scotland  to  enable  him  plausibly  to  declare  that 
her  mother's  marriage  with  Angus  was  "not  a  lawful  one," 
and  matters  having  been  thus  settled  the  Lady  Margaret 
was  immediately  restored  to  favour,  and  made  first  Lady  to 
Anne  of  Cleves,  a  position  which  was  continued  to  her  under 
Anne's  successor,  Catherine  Howard.  She,  however,  soon 
again  incurred  disgrace  for  a  courtship  with  Sir  Charles 
Howard,  third  brother  of  the  Queen,  and  was  in  the  autumn 
of  1 541  again  sent  to  Syon  Abbey.  To  make  room  for  the 
Queen,  who  a  few  months  later  came  under  a  heavier  accusa- 
tion, she  was  on  November  13  removed  to  Kenninghall, 
Cranmer  being  instructed  previous  to  her  removal  to  admon- 
ish her  for  "  overmuch  lightness,"  and  to  warn  her  to  "  be- 
ware the  third  time  and  wholly  apply  herself  to  please  the 


COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX  3" 

King's  majesty."  The  renewal  of  her  father's  influence  in 
Scotland  after  the  death  of  James  V.  restored  her  to  the 
favour  of  Henry,  who  wished  to  avail  himself  of  the  services 
of  Angus  in  negotiating  a  betrothal  between  Prince  Edward 
and  the  infant  Mary  of  Scotland.  On  July  lO,  1543,  she 
was  one  of  the  bridesmaids  at  the  marriage  of  Henry  to 
Catherine  Parr.  A  year  afterwards  Henry  arranged  for 
her  a  match  sufficiently  gratifying  to  her  ambition,  but  also 
followed  by  a  mutual  affection  between  her  and  her  husband, 
which  was  an  element  of  purity  and  gentleness  in  a  house- 
hold credited  with  dark  political  intrigues.  On  July  6, 
1544,  she  was  married  at  St.  James's  Palace  to  Matthew 
Stewart,  Earl  of  Lennox,  who  in  default  of  the  royal  line 
claimed  against  the  Hamiltons  the  next  succession  to  the 
Scottish  throne.  Lennox  was  appointed  Governor  of  Scot- 
land in  Henry's  name  on  condition  that  he  agreed  to  sur- 
render to  Henry  his  title  to  the  throne  of  Scotland,  and  to 
acknowledge  him  as  his  supreme  lord.  Shortly  after  the 
marriage  Lennox  embarked  on  a  naval  expedition  to  Scot- 
land, leaving  his  wife  at  Stepney  Palace.  Subsequently  she 
removed  to  Templenewsam,  Yorkshire,  granted  by  Henry 
VHL  to  her  husband,  who  at  a  later  period  joined  her  there. 
Having  escaped  from  Henry's  immediate  influence,  she  began 
to  manifest  her  Catholic  leanings,  deeply  to  Henry's  offence, 
who  had  a  violent  quarrel  with  her  shortly  before  his  death, 
and  by  his  last  will  excluded  her  from  the  succession.  Dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  she  continued  to  reside  chiefly 
in  the  north,  but  with  Mary's  accession  her  star  was  once 
more  in  the  ascendant.     Mary  made  her  her  special  friend 


312  COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX 

and  confidante,  gave  her  apartments  in  Westminster  Palace, 
bestowed  on  her  a  grant  of  revenue  from  the  taxes  on  the 
wool  trade,  amounting  to  three  thousand  marks  annually, 
and,  above  all,  assigned  her  precedency  over  Elizabeth.  It 
was,  in  fact,  to  secure  the  succession  of  Lady  Margaret  in 
preference  to  Elizabeth  that  an  effort  was  made  to  convict 
Elizabeth  of  being  concerned  in  the  Wyatt  conspiracy. 
Elizabeth,  notwithstanding  this,  on  succeeding  to  the  throne, 
received  her  with  seeming  cordiality  and  kindness,  but  neither 
bestowed  on  her  any  substantial  favours,  nor  was  in  any 
degree  deceived  as  to  her  sentiments.  Lady  Lennox  found 
that  she  could  better  serve  her  own  purposes  in  Yorkshire 
than  at  Court,  and  Elizabeth,  having  already  had  experiences 
which  made  confidence  in  her  intentions  impossible,  placed 
her  and  her  husband  under  vigilant  espionage.  The  result 
was  as  she  expected,  and  there  cannot  be  the  least  doubt  that 
Lady  Lennox's  Yorkshire  home  had  become  the  centre  of 
Catholic  intrigues.  No  conspiracy  of  a  sufficiently  definite 
kind  for  exposure  and  punishment  was  at  first  discovered,  but 
Elizabeth,  besides  specially  excluding  her  from  the  succession, 
brought  into  agitation  the  question  of  her  legitimacy.  Lady 
Lennox  manifested  no  resentment.  She  prudently  deter- 
mined, since  her  own  chances  of  succeeding  to  the  throne  of 
England  were  at  least  remote,  to  secure,  if  possible,  the  suc- 
cession of  both  thrones  to  her  posterity  by  a  marriage  between 
her  son.  Lord  Darnley,  and  Queen  Mary  of  Scotland,  who 
was  next  heir  to  Elizabeth.  Though  the  progress  of  the 
negotiations  cannot  be  fully  traced,  it  must  be  supposed  that 
the  arrangement,  if  not  incited  by  the  Catholic  powers,  had 


COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX  3^3 

their  special  approval.  For  a  time  ft  seemed  that  the  scheme 
would  miscarry.  Through  the  revelation  of  domestic  spies  it 
became  known  prematurely.  She  was,  therefore,  summoned 
to  London,  and  finally  her  husband  was  sent  to  the  Tower, 
while  she  and  Lord  Darnley  were  confined  in  the  house  of 
Sir  Richard  Sackville  at  Sheen.  While  there  an  inquiry 
was  set  on  foot  in  regard  to  her  treasonable  intentions 
towards  Elizabeth.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  Elizabeth 
became  satisfied  of  the  sincerity  of  her  friendship,  but  Lady 
Lennox  wrote  her  letters  with  so  skilful  a  savouring  of  flat- 
tery that  graduallv  Elizabeth  exhibited  symptoms  of  recon- 
ciliation. She  received  her  liberty,  and  soon  afterwards  she 
and  her  husband  became  "  continual  courtiers,"  and  were 
**  made  much  of,"  while  their  son.  Lord  Darnley,  won  Eliza- 
beth's high  commendation  by  his  proficiency  on  the  lute. 
The  suspicions  of  Elizabeth  being  thus  for  the  time  luUedi 
Lennox  was,  in  September,  1564,  permitted  to  return  to 
Scotland,  carrying  with  him  a  letter  from  Elizabeth  recom- 
mending Mary  to  restore  him  and  his  wife  to  their  estates. 
Through  the  expert  diplomacy  of  Sir  James  Melville,  on 
whom  Lady  Lennox  left  the  impression  that  she  was  "  a  very 
wyse  and  discret  matroun,"  Darnley  was  even  permitted  to 
join  his  father,  and  to  visit  Scotland  at  the  very  time  that 
Elizabeth  was  recommending  Leicester  as  a  husband  for 
Mar>'.  Lady  Lennox  also  took  advantage  of  the  return  of 
Melville  to  Scotland  to  entrust  him  with  graceful  presents 
for  the  Queen,  the  Earl  of  Moray,  and  the  secretary,  Leth- 
ington,  "  for  she  was  still  in  good  hope,"  says  Sir  James, 
"  that  hir  son,  my  Lord  Darley,  suld  com  better  speid  the 


314  COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX 

Erie  of  Leycester,  anent  the  marriage  with  the  quen."  The 
important  support  of  Morton  to  the  match  was  ultimately 
also  secured  by  her  renunciation  of  her  claims  to  the  Earl- 
dom of  Angus.  Elizabeth,  on  discovering  too  late  how 
cleverly  she  had  been  outwitted,  endeavoured  to  prevent,  or 
delay,  the  marriage  by  committing  Lady  Lennox  to  some 
place  where  she  might  "  be  kept  from  giving  or  receiving 
intelligence."  On  April  22  she  was  commanded  to  keep 
her  room,  and  on  June  20  she  was  sent  to  the  Tower.  In 
the  beginning  of  March,  1566-67,  after  Darnley's  murder, 
she  was  removed  to  her  old  quarters  at  Sheen,  and  shortly 
afterwards  was  set  at  liberty.  While  her  husband  made 
strenuous  but  vain  efforts  to  secure  the  conviction  of  Both- 
well  for  the  murder.  Lady  Lennox  was  clamorous  in  her 
denunciation  of  Mary  to  the  Spanish  ambassador  in  London, 
For  several  years  the  event  at  least  suspended  the  quarrel 
with  Elizabeth. 

It  suited  the  policy  of  Elizabeth  that  in  May,  1570,  Len- 
nox should  be  sent  into  Scotland  with  troops  under  the  com- 
mand of  Sir  William  Drury  to  aid  the  King's  party,  and  with 
her  sanction  he  was,  on  the  death  of  Moray,  appointed 
Regent.  Lady  Lennox,  so  long  as  her  husband  was  Regent, 
remained  as  hostile  to  Mary  as  ever.  She  was  the  principal 
medium  of  communication  between  Lennox  and  Elizabeth, 
and  also  gave  him  continual  assistance  and  encouragement  in 
his  difficult  position.  The  most  complete  confidence  and 
faithful  affection  is  expressed  in  the  letters  between  her  and 
her  husband;  but  it  cannot  be  affirmed  that  she  succeeded  in 
rendering  his  Regency  a  success ;  and  his  death  on  September 


COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX  315 

4,  1 57 1,  at  Stirling  was  really  a  happy  deliverance  to  the 
supporters  of  the  cause  of  her  grandson,  the  young  Prince, 
The  last  words  of  Lennox  were  an  expression  of  his  desire 
to  be  remembered  to  his  "  wife  Meg."  Her  grief  was  poign- 
ant and  perpetual,  and  she  caused  to  be  made  an  elaborate 
memorial  locket  of  gold  in  the  shape  of  a  heart,  which  she 
wore  constantly  about  her  neck  or  at  her  girdle.  It  was 
bought  by  Queen  Victoria  at  the  sale  of  Horace  Walpole's 
effects  in  1842. 

In  October,  1574,  Lady  Lennox  set  out  with  her  son, 
Charles,  for  the  north,  ostensibly  with  the  intention  of  going 
to  Scotland.  Before  setting  out,  she  asked  Elizabeth  if  she 
might  go  to  Chatsworth,  as  had  been  her  usual  custom, 
whereupon  Elizabeth  advised  her  not,  lest  it  should  be 
thought  she  "  should  agree  with  the  Queen  of  Scots."  "  And 
I  asked  Her  Majesty,"  writes  Lady  Lennox,  "  if  she  could 
think  so,  for  I  was  made  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  could  never 
forget  the  murder  of  my  child ;  and  she  said,  *  Nay,  by  her 
faith,  she  could  not  think  so  that  ever  I  could  forget  it,  for 
if  I  would  I  were  a  devil.'  " 

She  met  the  Duchess  of  Suffolk  at  Huntingdon,  where 
they  were  visited  by  Lady  Shrewsbury  and  her  daughter, 
Elizabeth  Cavendish,  and  on  Lady  Shrewsbury's  invitation 
Lady  Lennox  and  her  son  went  to  hei  neighbouring  house 
at  Rufford.  Thereafter,  as  her  son  had,  as  she  ingenuously 
put  it,  "  entangled  himself  so  that  he  could  have  none  other," 
he  and  Elizabeth  Cavendish  were  hastily  united  in  wedlock. 
As  soon  as  the  news  reached  Elizabeth,  she  summoned  Lady 
Lennox  to  London,  and  towards  the  close  of  December  both 


3i6  COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX 

she   and    the   Countess   of    Shrewsbury   were   sent   to   the 
Tower. 

If  Lady  Lennox  had  previous  to  this  been  unreconciled  to 
Mary,  her  experience  of  imprisonment  seems  to  have  com- 
pletely changed  her  sentiments.  While  in  the  Tower  she 
wrought  a  piece  of  point  lace  with  her  own  grey  hairs,  which 
she  transmitted  to  the  Queen  of  Scots  as  a  token  of  sympathy 
and  affection.  She  received  her  pardon  some  time  before 
the  death  of  her  son  in  the  spring  of  1577  of  consumption, 
but  she  did  not  long  survive  his  loss,  dying  March  7,  1577-78. 
She  had  four  sons  and  four  daughters,  but  all  predeceased 
her,  although  her  two  grandchildren,  James  L,  son  of  Lord 
Darnley,  and  Arabella  Stuart,  daughter  of  Charles,  fifth 
Earl  of  Lennox,  survived.  Chequered  as  her  life  had  been 
by  disappointment  and  sorrow,  in  its  main  purpose  it  was 
successful,  for  her  grandson,  James  VI.,  succeeded  to  the 
inheritance  of  the  English  as  well  as  the  Scottish  Crown. 
To  the  very  last  she  sacrificed  her  own  comfort  and  hap- 
piness to  effect  this  end.  Whatever  might  have  been  her 
opinions  as  to  Mary's  innocence  or  guilt,  she  would  have 
refrained  from  expressing  them  so  long  as  she  thought  her 
main  purpose  could  have  been  promoted  by  friendship  with 
Elizabeth.  In  her  last  years  she  ceased  to  seek  Elizabeth's 
favour,  and  after  her  restoration  to  liberty  was  not  permitted 
even  to  hold  her  Yorkshire  estates  in  trust  for  her  grandson. 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  in  an  unfinished  will  in  1577,  for- 
merly restored  to  her  "  all  the  rights  she  can  pretend  to  the 
Earldom  of  Angus,"  and  in  September  of  this  year  the 
Countess  made  a  claim  for  the  inheritance  of  the  Earldom 


COUNTESS   OF  LENNOX  3^7 

of  Lennox  for  her  granddaughter,  the  Lady  Arabella,  but 
the  latter  claim  achieved  as  little  for  her  as  the  expression  of 
her  sovereign  w^ishes.  At  her  death  her  poverty  was  so 
extreme  that  she  was  interred  at  royal  cost.  She  was  buried 
in  Westminster  Abbey  in  the  vault  of  her  son,  Charles. 


CATHERINE    DE*   MEDICI 

(1519—1589) 
ANNIE   FORBES   BUSH 

GRAND  NIECE  of  Leo  X.,  and  only  daughter  of 
Laurent  de*  Medici,  Due  d'Urbin,  and  of  Made- 
leine de  la  Tour  d'Auvergne  Lauraquais,  Catherine  de' 
Medici  was  born  in  Florence  in  15 19,  and  educated  in  the 
bosom  of  her  family,  who  governed  that  country  with  much 
celebrity. 

On  her  marriage  with  the  young  Duke  of  Orleans,  after- 
wards Henry  II.,  in  1533,  her  uncle,  Pope  Clement  VII., 
conducted  her  himself  to  Marseilles,  where  the  ceremony  was 
performed,  and  presented  her  on  the  occasion  with  a  dower 
of  three  hundred  thousand  crowns. 

During  the  first  year  of  her  marriage  the  young  princess 
politically  avoided  all  appearance  of  ambition,  in  a  court 
already  occupied  by  the  two  rivals  Diana  of  Poitiers  and  the 
Duchesse  d'Estampes,  with  both  of  whom  she  continued  to 
live  in  the  greatest  harmony.  She  also  displayed  great  ten- 
derness for  Francis  I.,  who,  gratified  by  the  amiable  manners 
and  agreeable  conversation  of  his  daughter-in-law,  frequently 
remarked  that  she  was  made  to  command.  The  King  was 
fond  of  the  chase,  and  Catherine  affected  a  passion  for  that 
species  of  amusement,  by  which  she  repeatedly  met  with 

318 


CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI. 


CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI  319 

serious  accidents.  She  was  skilled  in  archery,  and  rode 
gracefully;  it  was  this  princess  who  invented  pomelled  sad- 
dles: she  was  excessively  fond  of  dancing,  and  excelled  in 
ballets.  By  these  trifling  diversions  Catherine  deceived  the 
general  opinion,  which  at  that  time  gave  her  no  credit  for 
more  than  ordinary  talent;  nevertheless,  she  observed  all, 
studied  politics,  traced  her  future  plans,  and  thus  by  great 
sacrifices  and  perseverance  erected  the  edifice  of  her  power. 

The  Dauphin,  Francis,  having  been  poisoned  in  1536,  as 
some  historians  assert,  through  Catherine's  means,  the  young 
Duke  of  Orleans  became  heir  to  the  throne,  and,  as  he  had 
no  children  by  Catherine,  was  desirous  of  divorcing  her;  he 
could  not,  however,  perform  this  act  without  the  King's 
acquiescence,  and  Francis,  who  was  much  attached  to  his 
daughter-in-law,  warmly  opposed  it.  Henry's  mistress, 
Diana  of  Poitiers,  also  exerted  her  influence  to  prevent  the 
rupture  of  this  marriage,  as  she  felt  flattered  by  the  Princess's 
regard  for  her  and  feared  that  another  wife  might  treat  her 
differently. 

When  the  death  of  the  King  raised  her  husband  to  the 
throne,  the  Queen  pursued  the  same  line  of  conduct,  dissimu- 
lating her  ambitious  taste  for  governing  and  only  studious  to 
render  herself  popular  by  her  complaisant  manners.  Perhaps 
Henry  II.  discovered  the  haughty  and  violent  soul  of  his 
Queen  beneath  her  gentle  exterior,  for  she  possessed  no 
authority,  having  only  the  title  of  Queen,  whereas  the 
Duchess  of  Valentinois  was  virtually  so. 

She  was  crowned  at  Saint-Denis,  by  the  Cardinal  de 
Bourbon^  Archbishop  of  Lens,  and  made  a  solemn  entry  into 


320  CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI 

Paris,  accompanied  by  twelve  duchesses,  amongst  whom  was 
Diana  d'Angouleme,  Henry's  natural  daughter.  However, 
in  1522,  when  the  King  quitted  France  for  his  expedition  to 
Germany,  he  left  the  Regency  to  the  Queen,  who  performed 
nothing  worthy  of  notice  beyond  conciliating  all  hearts 
in  order  to  commence  more  securely  her  career  of  intrigue 
and  crime  when  she  should  become  mistress  of  absolute 
power. 

Henry  II.,  who  was  killed  by  the  Count  of  Montgomeri 
at  a  tournament  in  honour  of  the  marriage  of  his  daughter 
Elizabeth  with  Philip  II.,  King  qf  Spain,  left  the  Regency 
to  his  widow.  Catherine's  first  act  of  power  was  to  dismiss 
her  rival,  the  Duchess  of  Valentinois,  for  whom  it  was  no 
longer  necessary  for  her  to  assume  the  appearance  of  friend- 
ship. Two  years  after  the  death  of  Francis  II.,  which  occurred 
in  1560,  Catherine  de'  Medici,  forgetting  in  her  political 
views  that  the  Duchess  of  Valentinois  had  once  possessed 
the  heart  of  her  husband,  and  thinking  that  her  skill  in 
intrigue  would  be  useful  to  her,  recalled  her  to  Court,  where 
Diana  willingly  seconded  her  ambitious  purposes;  but  she 
did  not  long  enjoy  the  fruits  of  this  reconciliation,  having 
died  in  1566. 

The  kingdom  was  torn  by  the  factions  of  the  Princess  of 
the  blood,  the  Guises  and  the  Montmorencis,  amongst  whom 
she  unceasingly  created  divisions,  always  attaching  herself  to 
the  strongest  party,  which  she  invariably  confounded  in  the 
end  by  her  intrigues.  By  these  means  she  was  three  times 
Regent  of  France, — under  Francis  II.,  Charles  IX.,  and 
Henry  III.,  before  his  return  from  Poland. 


CATHERINE    DE»    MEDICI  321 

Catherine  made  choice  of  the  most  approved  councillors, 
amongst  whom  were  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine;  Montluc, 
Bishop  of  Valence;  Samblancay,  Archbishop  of  Bourges; 
and,  above  all,  the  upright  and  virtuous  Chancellor  de 
I'Hopital,  whose  influence  lasted  too  short  a  time  for  the 
welfare  of  his  country. 

The  Regent  was  not  equally  skilful  in  regard  to  the 
Protestants,  who  attacked  her  government,  and  published 
memoirs,  in  which  she  was  accused  of  unlawfully  taking  part 
in  the  administration:  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise  completely 
drew  upon  them  the  hatred  of  this  arrogant  Queen,  although 
she  was  very  indifferent  to  matters  of  religion,  and  at  one 
time  even  affected  an  attachment  for  the  Protestants,  whose 
discontents  she  favoured  when  necessary  to  her  projects;  but 
in  contesting  the  Regency  they  committed  an  offence  which 
she  considered  quite  unpardonable. 

During  the  short  reign  of  her  eldest  son,  Francis  II.,  who 
ascended  the  throne  in  1559,  and  died  in  1560,  Catherine's 
power  wavered;  for  the  King  had  married  Mary  Stuart, 
niece  to  the  Guises,  who  were  rendered  all-powerful  in 
France  in  consequence  of  the  affection  of  Francis  11.  for  his 
wife. 

On  the  occurrence  of  his  death,  Charles  IX.  succeeded 
to  the  throne,  and  his  minority  caused  a  new  Regency;  to 
obtain  which  Catherine  offered,  as  the  price  of  that  power, 
the  lives  and  liberty  of  the  Prince  of  Conde  and  the  King  of 
Navarre,  both  of  whom  were  condemned  to  death  in  conse- 
quence of  their  conspiracy  at  Amboise;  and  those  Princes, 
preferring  life  and  freedom  to  power,  agreed  to  her  proposal  2 


322  CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI 

her  government  was  therefore  proclaimed  by  the  states 
assembled  at  Orleans. 

The  last  obstacle  to  the  Queen-Regent*s  peaceable  enjoy- 
ment of  her  power  was  the  Duke  de  Guise,  who  was  assas- 
sinated at  Orleans,  oy  Poltrot,  in  1563.  Catherine,  on  learn- 
ing the  news,  shed  tears  of  joy.  She  at  once  dismissed  the 
virtuous  I'Hopital,  whose  probity  was  a  restraint  to  her;  and, 
unscrupulous  as  to  the  means  she  employed  to  gratify  her 
taste  for  governing,  continued  to  foment  divisions  between 
those  whose  attachment  she  doubted,  and  by  weakening  the 
state  secured  her  own  tranquillity;  on  the  other  hand,  she 
loaded  her  partisans  with  favours,  and  augmented  their  num- 
bers daily. 

Although  forty-three  years  of  age,  she  still  possessed  great 
beauty,  of  which  it  is  asserted  that  she  made  political  use, 
having  accorded  her  smiles  to  the  Vidame  of  Chartres,  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  the  Duke  de  Nemours,  the  Duke  de 
Guise,  the  Prince  de  Conde,  and  even  to  a  private  gentleman 
of  Brittany  named  Troile  de  Mesquez. 

She  also  attracted  all  the  nobility  to  the  Court  by  the 
various  diversions  that  she  invented;  her  maids  of  honour, 
the  number  of  whom  exceeded  two  hundred,  performed  in 
ballets  and  theatricals  which  she  composed,  and  Catherine 
did  not  hesitate  to  make  use  of  their  attractions  also  to  serve 
her  political  purposes;  she  corrupted  her  Court  and  her  own 
children,  not  even  excepting  Marguerite  de  Valois,  whom 
she  frequently  conducted  to  the  Place  de  Greve  in  Paris  to 
witness  the  executions. 

Catherine  was,  however,  very  industrious:  a  follower  of 


CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI  323 

the  school  of  Alexander  VI.  and  the  Borgias,  she  diligently 
studied  Machiavelism,  incessantly  corresponded  in  French 
and  Italian,  and  added  lustre  to  her  diadem  by  the  discern- 
ing and  generous  patronage  she  bestowed  on  artists,  who 
have  acknowledged  their  debt  of  gratitude  to  her  in  the 
eulogies  they  have  handed  down  to  posterity. 

Although  gifted  with  an  intellectual  mind,  Catherine, 
who  had  no  religious  faith,  believed  in  ghosts  and  spirits; 
she  always  wore  upon  her  bosom  the  skin  of  an  infant  whose 
throat  had  been  cut;  this  amulet  was  covered  with  mysterious 
characters  of  different  colours,  and  she  was  persuaded  that  it 
possessed  the  virtue  of  preserving  her  from  all  injury.  She 
brought  divinators  and  astrologers  with  her  from  Italy, 
amongst  whom  was  the  celebrated  Cosmo  Ruggieri. 

To  these  faults  and  weaknesses  Catherine  joined  some 
great  qualities;  she  intrepidly  assisted  at  the  seige  of  Rouen, 
in  1562,  by  encouraging  the  soldiers  in  the  midst  of  the 
fight,  heedless  of  the  balls  and  bullets  which  flew  around  her : 
she  afterwards  took  possession  of  Havre  de  Grace,  which 
was  occupied  by  the  English,  and  made  a  negotiation  with 
Elizabeth  of  England,  by  which  that  powerful  Queen  evac- 
uated the  coasts  of  Normandy,  which  had  been  ceded  to  her 
by  the  Protestants  during  the  civil  war.  At  this  time  all 
Europe  was  governed  by  women:  England,  by  Elizabeth; 
Scotland,  by  Mary  Stuart ;  Portugal,  by  the  Infanta,  daugh- 
ter of  Eleanor ;  Navarre,  by  Queen  Jane ;  the  Low  Countries, 
by  the  natural  daughter  of  Charles  V. ;  Spain,  by  Isabella  of 
France;  and  France,  by  Catherine  de'  Medici. 

The  most  sanguinary  page  in  the  annals  of  France  is 


324  CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI 

offered  to  the  memory  in  the  massacres  of  Saint  Bartholomew, 
which  took  place  on  the  24th  of  August,  1572,  and  were 
resolved  on  and  arranged  in  the  Tuileries  by  Catherine  and 
the  Dukes  of  Anjou,  Nevers,  and  Angouleme.  Admiral 
Coligny  was  to  be  the  first  victim,  and  the  general  massacre 
was  to  follow.  All  was  determined  with  a  frightful  secrecy ; 
the  barriers  of  Paris  were  locked  and  guarded,  and  the  signal 
was  the  clock  of  Saint  Germain  I'Auxerrois.  Sad  and 
anxious,  Charles  IX.  waited  in  secret  horror  for  the  hour 
of  the  massacre.  His  mother,  fearing  his  irresolution,  passed 
the  night  beside  him,  reassured  him,  and  prevented  him  from 
countermanding  his  order;  to  hasten  the  performance  of 
which,  she  caused  the  tocsin  to  be  sounded  before  the  arrival 
of  the  hour. 

After  this  period  the  Queen-mother  plunged  into  every 
species  of  depravity,  infected  France  with  all  the  vices  of 
Italy,  and  favoured  and  encouraged  the  disorderly  conduct 
of  her  sons,  in  order  to  deprive  them  of  the  energy  requisite 
for  governing.  She  instituted,  among  other  diversions,  bat- 
tles between  beasts,  and  accompanied  her  children  to  witness 
the  tortures  and  executions  of  the  condemned;  after  which 
she  gave  them  feasts  in  which  her  maids  of  honour,  crowned 
with  flowers  and  habited  as  goddesses,  served  the  young 
Princes  at  table. 

Charles  IX. *s  disposition,  after  the  massacres  of  Saint 
Bartholomew,  became  sad  and  melancholy;  he  was  con- 
stantly filled  with  terror;  and,  struck  with  a  mortal  malady 
in  the  flower  of  his  age,  he  experienced  but  indifference  and 
neglect  from  most  of  his  relations.     He  believed  himself 


CATHERINE    DE'    MEDICI  325 

to  be  surrounded  with  spectres,  had  frightful  dreams,  in 
which  his  terrified  imagination  beheld  rivers  of  blood  and 
heaps  of  ghastly  corpses,  and  fancied  that  the  air  was  con- 
stantly filled  with  doleful  sounds  and  plaintive  accents. 
When  dying,  Charles  IX.  repulsed  his  mother  with  horror, 
and  fell  into  convulsions  whenever  she  attempted  to  approach 
him. 

The  Queen-mother  experienced  little  grief  at  the  loss  of 
this  son,  having  always  a  preference  for  the  Duke  of  Anjou ; 
some  chronicles  state  that  Louis  XIII.  often  repeated  that 
Charles  IX.  was  poisoned  by  Catherine  de'  Medici.  This 
Queen  saw  with  pleasure  the  continuation  of  her  authority, 
until  Henry  III.,  who  was  elected  King  of  Poland,  in  1573, 
returned  to  France  and  assumed  the  reins  of  government,  in 
1574.  But  this  Prince  was  no  longer  the  valiant  conqueror 
of  Jarnac  and  Montcontour,  having  grown  indolent,  and 
his  ambitious  mother  encouraged  this  disposition. 

In  1575,  Henry  III.  married  Louise  de  Lorraine,  niece  to 
the  Due  de  Guise;  and  Catherine,  fearing  that  the  young 
Queen's  uncle  would  obtain  too  much  Influence  over  the 
King,  created  a  division  between  the  royal  pair.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Indignant  Protestants  again  revolted;  but  the 
Queen-mother  arrested  the  King  of  Navarre  and  the  Mar- 
shals Montmorenci  and  de  Cosse,  who  headed  them,  but  the 
King  rendered  them  their  liberty  In  1576,  and  granted  them 
places  of  security.  Catherine  consoled  herself  by  prevailing 
on  the  Pope  to  excommunicate  the  King  of  Navarre  in  1585. 

The  Queen's  astrologers  had  foretold  that  her  four  sons 
would  be  Kings,  and  she  made  every  effort  to  procure  a  for- 


J 


326  CATHERINE   DE'   MEDICI 

eign  crown  for  the  fourth,  who  was  Due  d'Alengon,  for 
she  loved  Henry  III.  too  much  to  wish  that  the  fourth 
Prince  should  succeed  to  the  throne  through  his  death.  She 
therefore  despatched  Monsieur  de  NoalUes  to  obtain  the 
Regency  of  Algiers  for  him  from  the  Sultan,  Selim  XL,  with 
the  view  of  composing  a  kingdom  for  that  Prince  by  the  addi- 
tion of  the  island  of  Sardinia.  This  ambitious  woman  also 
despatched  a  fleet  in  1580  to  maintain  her  pretensions  to  the 
Crown  of  Portugal,  but  in  that  enterprise  she  failed. 

The  formation  of  the  League  in  1585  augmented  her 
power,  but  threw  France  into  the  most  terrible  disorder;  the 
Due  de  Guise  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  revolt,  and 
plunged  the  nation  into  an  abyss  of  trouble,  which  the  acces- 
sion of  Henry  the  Great  alone  put  an  end  to. 

After  the  celebrated  "  day  of  barricades,"  in  1588,  the 
King,  who  was  defeated  by  the  League  and  obliged  to  quit 
Paris,  at  length  discerned  the  source  of  all  the  evil ;  he,  there- 
fore, forbid  his  mother's  appearance  in  the  Council,  and 
loaded  her  with  bitter  reproaches.  The  rage  to  which  Cath- 
erine gave  vent  in  consequence  brought  on  a  violent  fever, 
of  which  she  died  at  Blois,  in  1589,  aged  seventy  years.  This 
Queen  deservedly  carried  to  the  tomb  the  execration  of  the 
people. 

Her  children  were — ^besides  Francis  II.,  Charles  IX.,  and 
Henry  III. — Louis,  Victoria,  and  Jane,  who  died  in  their 
infancy;  Francis,  Duke  d'Alengon  and  Brabant;  Elizabeth, 
wife  of  Philip  IL,  King  of  Spain;  Claude,  married  to 
Charles  IL,  Due  de  Lorraine;  and  Margaret  de  Valois,  first 
wife  of  Henry  the  Great. 


CATHERINE    DE'   MEDICI  327 

Chateaubriand,  in  his  remarks  on  this  Queen,  says: 
"  Catherine  was  an  Italian,  and  educated  In  a  republican 
principality;  she  was  accustomed  to  popular  storms,  factions, 
Intrigues,  secret  poisonings,  and  midnight  murders;  she  had 
no  aristocratic  and  monarchical  prejudices — ^that  haughtiness 
towards  the  great  and  contempt  for  the  little,  those  preten- 
sions to  divine  right  and  monopoly  of  absolute  power;  she 
was  unacquainted  with  our  laws,  and  had  little  respect  for 
them;  for  she  attempted  to  place  the  crown  of  France  upon 
the  head  of  her  daughter.  Like  the  Italians  of  her  time,  she 
was  superstitious,  but  Incredulous  in  her  religious  opinions 
and  In  her  unbelief;  had  no  real  aversion  to  the  Protestants, 
but  sacrificed  them  for  political  reasons.  In  fact.  If  we 
trace  all  her  actions,  we  shall  perceive  that  she  looked  upon 
this  vast  kingdom,  of  which  she  was  the  sovereign,  as  an 
enlarged  Florence;  and  considered  the  riots  of  her  little 
republic,  the  quarrels  of  the  PozzI  and  the  Medlcis,  as  the 
struggles  of  the  Guises  and  Chatillons." 

As  the  mother  of  kings,  the  guardian  of  her  children,  and 
the  Regent  of  the  kingdom,  Catherine's  character  Is  a  prob- 
lem difficult  to  solve.  She  was  more  circumspect  than  enter- 
prising, and  supplied  the  want  of  a  vigorous  chief  by  the 
craftiness  and  cunning  of  her  sex  and  country ;  she  neither  did 
wrong  for  the  pleasure  of  committing  evil,  nor  good  from  a 
natural  principle  of  virtue,  for  her  merits  and  vices  depended 
mostly  on  moments  and  circumstances.  In  reflecting  on  the 
annals  of  empires,  how  frequently  the  destinies  of  thousands 
depend  upon  the  lightest  incidents!  At  the  Insurrection 
of  Florence,  In  1528,  Catherine  de'  Medici  several  times  nar- 


328  CATHERINE   DE'   MEDICI 

rowly  escaped  death.  The  rebels,  having  seized  her,  con- 
veyed her  to  a  convent:  one  of  them  proposed  to  suspend  her 
from  the  walls,  exposed  to  the  fire  of  the  artillery,  and 
another  w^ished  to  give  her  up  to  the  brutality  of  the  soldiers ; 
but  she  escaped  all  these  dangers,  in  order  to  burden  France 
with  trouble  for  the  space  of  fifty-six  years ! 

Nevertheless,  her  love  for  the  arts  does  her  honour. 
Besides  the  Tuileries  and  the  Hotel  de  Soissons  which  she 
built  at  Paris,  she  erected  the  beautiful  Chateau  de  Chenon- 
ceaux  in  Touraine;  she  also  enriched  the  Royal  Library  of 
Paris  with  a  great  number  of  Greek  and  Latin  manuscripts, 
and  with  a  portion  of  the  books  which  her  great-grandfather, 
Laurent  de'  Medici,  purchased  from  the  Turks  after  the 
taking  of  Constantinople. 


CATERINA  CORNARO,  QUEEN   OF  CYPRUS 

(1454— 1510) 

DEZOS   DE   LA   ROQUETTE 

LUSIGNANA-CATERINA,  or  Catherine,  Queen  of 
/Cyprus,  born  in  Venice,  in  1454,  was  the  daughter 
of  Marco  Cornaro,  a  noble  Venetian,  a  descendant  of  the 
Doge  of  the  same  name,  and  Florence,  daughter  of  Niccolo 
Crispo,  Duca  dell'  Archipelago.  At  an  early  age,  she  was 
sent  to  the  convent  of  San  Benedetto  in  Padoua;  here  she 
was  educated  and  remained  until  1469.  At  this  period, 
Jacques  II.  de  Lusignan,  King  of  Cyprus,  Jerusalem  and 
Armenia,  the  natural  son  of  King  Jean  III.  and  Maria 
Patrasso,  a  Cypriote  lady,  had  reigned  for  several  years 
without  opposition.  After  having  abdicated  from  the  Arch- 
bishopric of  Nicosia,  and  retired  from  ecclesiastical  life,  sup- 
ported by  the  Soldan  of  Alexandria,  he  had  succeeded  in  forc- 
ing his  sister,  Charlotte,  legitimate  daughter  and  heir  to  the 
throne  of  Jean  III.,  and  wife  of  the  Count  of  Geneva,  to 
withdraw  into  Savoy. 

Having  had,  according  to  the  authors  of  the  Dictionnaire 
historique  de  Bassano,  to  choose  a  wife  from  among  sixty- 
two  of  the  most  beautiful  women  of  Venice,  Jacques  11. 
offered  his  crown  and  his  hand  to  Caterina  Cornaro;  he 

329 


330  CATERINA   CORNARO 

offered  himself  either  because  he  was  in  love  with  her,*  or, 
according  to  some  historians,  in  recognition  of  the  services 
that  her  uncle,  Andrea  Cornaro,  had  rendered  him.  This 
marriage  was  brought  about  by  the  intervention  of  Antonio 
Zucchi,  a  native  of  Udine  and  Bishop  of  Nicosia,  and  Philip 
Podacataro,  royal  orator  {regio  oratore)  of  Venice.  The 
Senate  adopted  Caterina  Cornaro  as  a  daughter  of  the 
Republic,  gave  her  a  dowry  of  a  hundred  thousand  golden 
ducats,  and  agreed  to  defend  the  King  and  Kingdom  of 
Cyprus  against  all  enemies. 

The  solemn  nuptials  were  celebrated  in  Venice;  the  Doge 
himself,  Cristoforo  Moro,  called  for  the  bride  at  her  house 
in  the  Bucentaur,  gave  her  her  title,  and  accompanied  her  to 
the  shore,  where  she  embarked  on  a  Venetian  galley,  com- 
manded by  Girolamo  Diedo,  and  a  perfectly  regal  suite, 
among  whom  were  the  ambassadors  of  King  Jacques;  she 
was  also  accompanied  and  attended  by  Andrea  Bragadino, 
whom  the  Republic  had  appointed  her  husband  by  proxy. 

Caterina  left  in  1472  for  Famagosta,  the  capital  of  Cyprus, 
and,  after  having  experienced  several  accidents  on  the  sea, 
arrived  at  her  destination.  Welcomed  by  the  most  enthu- 
siastic demonstrations  from  the  kingdom,  which  admired  her 
rare  beauty  and  her  charming  manners,  she  was  crowned 

*  M.  Daru  tells  the  story  differently.  According  to  him,  Andrea 
Cornaro,  a  Venetian  patrician,  banished  from  his  country  on  account 
of  his  youthful  adventures,  formed  a  connection  with  Jacques;  as  if 
by  accident,  he  allowed  him  to  see  the  portrait  of  his  niece,  the 
aight  of  which  inflamed  this  prince,  who  was  then  Archbishop  of 
Nicosia  and  decided  him  to  renounce  ecclesiastical  orders;  and,  at  a 
later  period,  when  he  became  King,  he  married  Caterina  Cornaro. 


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CATERINA    COKNARO. 


CATERINA   CORNARO  331 

Queen  with  the  most  brilliant  festivities.  A  year  and  a  half 
had  scarcely  elapsed  after  this  marriage,  when  Jacques  II., 
whose  government  did  not  give  satisfaction  to  his  subjects, 
died  on  June  5,  1473,  the  victim  of  a  conspiracy.  His  first 
son  by  Caterina  had  already  died  before  him;  but  he  left 
her  expecting  a  second  child  that  was  under  the  protection 
of  her  uncle,  Andrea  Cornaro,  and  the  Republic  of  Venice. 

The  protection  that  the  Venetians  had  accorded  to  the 
Kingdom  of  Cyprus  had  never  been  disinterested;  but  their 
cupidity  and  ambition  manifested  themselves  more  openly 
after  the  death  of  Jacques  II.  His  posthumous  child,  who 
had  been  proclaimed  King  on  his  birth,  dying  in  1475, 
Caterina  worked  ardently  for  her  rights,  and  with  the  aid 
of  the  Venetians  she  succeeded  in  vanquishing  the  partisans 
that  her  sister-in-law,  Charlotte,  had  kept  in  the  island,  and 
in  maintaining  possession  of  her  kingdom.* 

For  nearly  fourteen  years  Caterina  remained  in  the  island 
of  Cyprus,  subjected  by  the  Venetians  to  the  most  severe 
surveillance,  kept  by  them,  so  to  speak,  a  prisoner  in  her 
palace,  and  deprived,  little  by  little,  of  all  authority. 

Avenging  by  frequent  punishments  the  conspiracies  of  the 
nobles,  sometimes  for  the  sake  of  Charlotte  and  sometimes  for 
the  sake  of  Caterina,  they  first  compelled  the  former  to  leave 
Cyprus  and  wearied  the  latter  so  by  the  incessant  restrictions 
they  laid  upon  her  liberty,  that,  towards  the  end  of  1489, 
she  allowed  herself  to  be  persuaded  to  abandon  the  island 

*  On  the  28th  of  July,  1482,  Charlotte  ceded  her  rights  to  Charles 
I.,  Duke  of  Savoy  and  his  successors  in  that  Duchy,  and  retired  to 
Rome,  where  she  died  on  the  16th  of  July,  1487.  The  Venetians 
had  made  vain  efforts  to  get  her  to  put  herself  in  their  hands. 


332  CATERINA   CORNARO 

with  Giorgio  Cornaro,  her  beloved  brother,  and  to  retire  to 
Venice.  This  occurred  in  1489,  and  on  the  26th  of  Feb- 
ruary, yielding  to  the  entreaties  of  her  brother,  threatened, 
Sismondi  assures  us,  to  forfeit  his  head  on  account  of  the 
failure  in  carrying  out  the  orders  of  Signory,  she  made  a 
solemn  transfer  of  her  kingdom  and  all  her  pretensions  to 
the  Doge  in  the  Basilica  of  St.  Mark.* 

The  Senate  invested  the  Cornaro  family  with  fourteen 
villages  (casali),  of  the  island,  and,  in  the  course  of  several 
years,  with  the  title  of  commandery,  permitting  the  descend- 
ants of  that  illustrious  house  to  use  the  Lusignan  arms. 

Having  repaired  to  Frattalonga,  situated  at  the  foot  of  the 
Asolani  mountains  in  the  Trevisan  marshes,  to  meet  the 
Emperor  Maximilian,  who  was  returning  to  Vienna  by  way 
of  Milan,  this  place  pleased  her  so  much  that  on  the  2ist  of 
June  she  demanded  of  and  obtained  from  the  Doge,  Augos- 
tino  Barbarigo,  the  investiture  of  Asolo  and  its  district  with 
ten  livres  of  gold  a  year.  She  returned  in  the  following 
month  of  October  to  this  place,  which  had  been  ceded  to  her, 
accompanied  by  more  than  four  thousand  persons,  and  estab- 
lished a  court  in  the  castle,  where  she  lived  about  twenty-one 
years  with  a  suite  of  twenty-four  persons  and  a  body  of 

•  Sismondi  supposes  that  this  transfer  was  made  in  the  island  of 
Cyprus  to  Franco  Priuli,  general  of  the  Republic.  Count  Daru 
seems  to  share  this  opinion,  for  he  says  that  Caterina  was  forced 
to  abdicate  in  favour  of  the  Venetians  in  1488;  that  the  Republic 
took  possession  of  the  Kingdom  of  Cyprus  on  the  26th  of  February, 
1489,  and  that  on  the  following  14th  of  May  she  embarked  for 
Venice.  We  have  followed  the  account  given  by  the  authors  of 
the  Dtcttonnaire  histortque  de  Bassano. 


CATERINA   CORNARO  333 

regular  troops  furnished  her  by  the  Republic  for  her  defence, 
or  else  as  a  guarantee  of  her  conduct. 

In  this  beautiful  residence,  Caterina  Cornaro,  Queen  of 
Cyprus,  held  three  courts  at  the  same  time, — that  of  the 
Muses;  that  of  Love;  and  her  own,  which  was  of  a  truly 
regal  magnificence.  Bembo  was  the  soul  and  ornament  of 
all  three.  The  delightful  abode  at  Asolo,  where  love  and 
pleasure  reigned,  was  visited  by  the  most  illustrious  person- 
ages of  Italy,  who  were  entertained  by  Caterina  with  fabu- 
lous splendour.  The  celebrated  poet,  Pietro  Bembo,  her 
relative,  who  afterwards  became  Cardinal,  but  who  was  very 
young  at  this  time,  rarely  ever  left  it:  and  it  was  for  the 
magnificent  marriage  festivities  of  one  of  her  maids  of  honour 
that  he  wrote  Gli  Asolani*  in  1490.  She  built  at  Asolono 
(afterwards  known  as  St.  Catherine),  at  her  own  expense, 
a  new  church  dedicated  to  her  saint,  and  erected  other  monu- 
ments that  show  her  piety  and  generosity. 

During  the  wars  occasioned  by  the  League  of  Cambray, 
she  thought  it  best  for  the  sake  of  security  to  retire  to  Venice, 
where  she  died  on  July  5,  15 10,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six 
years,  in  the  palace  of  her  brother  Giorgio,  who  was  then  pro- 
curator of  St.  Mark's. 

After  a  magnificent  funeral,  her  body  was  first  placed  in 
the  Church  of  the  Santi  Apostoli,  and  afterwards  in  that  of 
S.  Salvatore,  and  a  simple  inscription  was  engraven  on  her 
tomb. 

♦These  are  dialogues  on  the  nature  of  love,  supposed  to  be  held 
by  six  young  persons  of  both  sexes. 


ANNE  MARIE  LOUISE  D'ORLEANS, 
DUCHESSE  DE  MONTPENSIER 

(1627 — 1693) 
CHARLES  DUKE   YONGE 

THE  PRINCESSE  ANNE  MARIE  LOUISE 
D'ORLEANS,  Duchesse  de  Montpensier,  but  bet- 
ter known  as  Mademoiselle,  and  not  unfrequently  spoken  of 
as  La  Grande  Mademoiselle,  was  of  the  most  royal  birth  in 
France,  being  the  only  legitimate  granddaughter  of  Henry 
IV.,  and  the  wealthiest  heiress  in  Europe,  succeeding  as  she 
did,  even  in  the  lifetime  of  her  father,  Gaston,  Duke  of 
Orleans,  to  the  vast  possessions  of  her  mother,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  house  of  Montpensier.  As  such,  the  arrangement 
of  a  marriage  for  her  might  naturally  have  been  expected  to 
have  been  among  the  first  objects  of  solicitude,  not  only  to  the 
relatives  who  could  guide  the  disposal  of  her  hand,  but  still 
more  to  those  who  might  hope  to  obtain  it;  and  never  has 
so  varied  and  royal  a  list  of  candidates  been  offered  to  any 
lady's  acceptance.  An  emperor,  three  kings,  and  kings* 
brothers,  and  cousins  almost  without  number,  had  their  pre- 
tensions to  her  favour  successively  discussed;  but,  chiefly 
through  her  own  caprice  or  indifference,  all  the  great  matches 
which  were  proposed  for  her  came  to  nothing.  Though  for 
a  moment  she  favoured  one  or  two  of  the  suggested  connec- 

334 


LA    GRANDE    MADEMOISELLE. 


LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE  335 

tions,  she  admits  frankly  that  in  those  instances  she  was 
attracted  by  the  position  of  her  intended  husband  rather  than 
by  himself;  and  the  first  person  who  ever  awakened  her 
serious  liking  was  no  prince  of  any  nation,  but  only  a  younger 
brother  of  a  noble  family,  that  of  Lazun,  whom  she  eventu- 
ally married.  Even  apart  from  her  rank  and  wealth,  her 
personal  charms  were  sufficient  to  attract  suitors  enough,  if 
her  own  description  of  them  may  be  believed : 

"  I  am  tall,  neither  fat  nor  thin ;  of  a  very  fine  and  grace- 
ful figure.  My  neck  is  tolerably  shaped ;  my  arms  and  hands 
are  not  good ;  but  my  skin  is  fair.  My  legs  are  straight ;  my 
feet  are  well-formed;  my  hair  light,  or  a  pretty  ash-colour. 
My  face  is  long,  its  contour  pretty;  my  nose  is  large  and 
aquiline;  my  mouth  is  neither  large  nor  small,  but  sym- 
metrical, and  with  a  very  agreeable  expression.  My  lips  are 
rosy;  my  teeth  not  good,  but  not  very  bad;  my  eyes  blue, 
neither  large  nor  small,  but  bright,  soft,  and  commanding, 
like  my  countenance.  I  have  a  lofty  manner  without  being 
conceited.  I  am  civil  and  familiar;  but  in  a  way  rather  to 
gain  respect  than  to  allow  any  one  to  fail  in  it.  I  am  very 
indifferent  about  my  dress,  but  never  untidy;  I  hate  slovenli- 
ness. I  am  always  neat,  and,  whether  dressed  carefully  or 
carelessly,  all  I  put  on  is  in  good  taste.  I  do  not  mean  that 
I  do  not  look  incomparably  better  when  carefully  got  up ;  but 
carelessness  is  less  injurious  to  me  than  to  others,  because 
without  flattering  myself,  while  I  do  justice  to  all  I  wear, 
everything  I  put  on  becomes  me.  I  talk  a  great  deal  without 
talking  nonsense  or  using  bad  expressions,  and  I  never  speak 
of  what  I  do  not  understand." 


336  LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE 

This  high-born,  wealthy,  showy-looking,  clever,  capricious, 
warm-hearted,  cool-headed,  haughty,  affable,  imperious, 
friendly,  wayward,  mirth-loving  damsel  was  but  little  more 
than  sixteen,  when  the  whole  aspect  of  the  Court  in  which 
she  moved  was  changed  by  the  death  of  that  most  unamiable 
of  sovereigns,  Louis  XIIL,  and  the  transference  of  authority 
to  the  hands  of  his  widow,  the  gracious  and  popular  Anne  of 
Austria.  As  if  by  the  touch  of  an  enchanter,  gloom  and 
moroseness  were  in  a  moment  exchanged  for  sunshine  and 
good-humour,  and  the  Princess  enjoyed  the  transformation 
as  much  as  any  one;  giving  herself  up  eagerly  to  the  excite- 
ment of  pleasures  suitable  to  her  age,  and  by  no  means 
impatient  to  surrender  her  liberty  to  a  master  in  the  shape  of 
a  husband. 

At  first,  indeed,  she  and  her  father  adhered  to  the  Court 
and  accompanied  the  King  and  Queen  in  their  second  flight 
from  Paris.  The  Queen's  surprise  at  her  promptitude  in 
joining  the  flight  had  been  caused  by  a  belief  that  her  father, 
d'Orleans,  was  in  reality  meditating  a  change  of  sides  and  a 
union  with  the  rebels.  The  prospect  seemed  to  Mazarin  so 
fraught  with  danger  to  himself  that  he  spared  no  pains  to 
prevent  it;  and  in  spite  of  the  Queen-mother's  known  desire 
for  a  different  connection  for  her  son,  sent  a  messenger  to 
Mademoiselle  to  implore  her  intervention.  He  probably 
judged  rightly  in  believing  that  her  resolute  character  had 
sufficient  ascendency  over  her  father  to  insure  his  adoption  of 
any  cause  which  she  should  insist  on ;  and  the  bait  which  he 
not  unreasonably  expected  to  prevail  with  her  was  the  offer 
of  immediate  marriage  with  the  young  King,  who  was  on  the 


LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE  337 

point  of  attaining  his  legal  majority,  which  for  French 
sovereigns  was  fixed  at  their  thirteenth  birthday.  In  reality 
she  had  already  begun  to  contemplate  the  marriage  thus 
tendered  to  her  as  the  first  object  of  her  ambition;  yet  she 
received  the  message  with  a  coldness  which  was  little  short 
of  disdain.  She  and  her  father  must  keep  the  engagements 
into  which  they  had  entered  with  Conde. 

Conde  soon  declared  himself  in  open  rebellion;  and  noth- 
ing was  of  greater  moment  to  his  success  than  the  adhesion  of 
the  great  city  of  Orleans,  where  her  father  naturally  had 
more  influence  than  anywhere  else.  But  he,  as  faithless  in 
his  treason  as  in  his  loyal  moments,  could  not,  when  the  hour 
of  action  came,  resolve  to  do  anything  at  all.  There  was 
not  an  instant  to  lose,  for  the  King,  who  was  on  the  Loire 
with  a  small  army  under  command  of  Turenne,  had  sent  to 
demand  admittance  into  Orleans.  The  citizens  of  Orleans 
looked  on  themselves  almost  as  much  bound  and  more  inclined 
to  obey  the  Duke  than  the  King;  and  in  the  perplexity  into 
which  the  royal  summons  threw  them,  they  applied  to  him 
for  directions  as  to  their  conduct.  He  was  as  incapable  of 
directing  as  of  acting ;  but  in  his  helplessness  he  did  what  was 
better,  or  at  least  more  efficacious  than  either — he  took  to 
his  bed  and  whistled,  and  sent  his  daughter  to  Orleans  to  act 
on  her  own  judgment. 

No  commission  could  have  been  more  suited  to  her  present 
fancy.  She  wanted  excitement;  she  wanted  to  punish 
Mazarin  for  not  marrying  her  to  the  King  without  any  con- 
ditions. She  nominated  a  staff  of  female  aides-de-camp,  and 
with  them  quitted  Paris  without  delay.     On  her  way,  she 


338  LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE 

fell  in  with  the  Dukes  of  Beaufort  and  Nemours,  who, 
though  also  recognised  as  princes  of  the  blood,  were  also  in 
rebellion.  She  took  them,  and  some  troops  which  they  had 
with  them,  under  her  orders,  and  showed  that  she  was  deter- 
mined to  exercise  a  real  authority  by  establishing  and  reso- 
lutely maintaining  the  strictest  military  discipline,  from  which 
she  would  not  exempt  even  the  dukes  themselves.  They  and 
her  staff  of  five  ladies  gave  her  the  most  trouble;  they  meant 
to  play  at  rebellion,  she  was  thoroughly  in  earnest;  and  she 
was  no  reine  faineante  to  suffer  her  commands  to  be  disputed 
or  neglected.  She  shamed  the  dukes  into  punctuality  by 
marching  without  them  when  they  failed  to  present  them- 
selves at  the  proper  time.  Some  of  the  ladies,  who  mur- 
mured and  even  swore  at  the  hardship  she  imposed  upon 
them,  she  reproached  as  poltroons,  and  sent  them  back  to 
Paris.  She  presided  at  councils  of  war;  and  allowed  It  to 
be  seen  that  she  would  have  no  objection  to  preside  at  a 
court-martial.  When  she  reached  Orleans  and  found  the 
citizens  too  much  alarmed  to  admit  her,  though  they  offered 
as  a  compromise  to  refuse  also  to  admit  the  King  himself, 
she  engaged  a  crowd  of  bargemen  to  break  down  a  passage 
for  her  at  a  spot  in  the  city-walls  where  an  old  gate  which 
opened  on  the  river  had  been  blocked  iip.  When  a  breach 
had  been  made,  they  ferried  her  across  the  water,  two  of  them 
took  her  up  in  their  arms  and  carried  her  over  the  mud,  and 
then,  seating  her  on  a  chair,  they  bore  her  on  their  shoulders 
in  triumph  into  the  city,  the  drums  beating,  and  the  people 
shouting  "  Long  live  the  King  and  the  Princes,  but  down 
with  Mazarin  I  " 


LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE  339 

She  was  now  as  absolutely  mistress  of  the  city  as  Joan  of 
Arc  had  been.  The  magistrates  formally  resigned  their 
authority  into  her  hands;  and  she  was  as  ready  to  govern 
a  town  as  to  command  an  army.  She  summoned  the 
municipal  officers  and  principal  citizens  to  the  town  hall,  and 
made  them  a  speech;  Introduced  a  sufficient  body  of  troops 
to  garrison  the  place ;  allotted  them  their  duties  with  military 
precision ;  and  In  a  few  hours  put  the  city  In  such  a  state  of 
defence,  and  excited  so  unanimous  an  enthusiasm  in  all 
classes,  that,  when  the  King's  army  arrived.  Its  commanders 
could  see  no  probability  of  attacking  it  with  success.  She 
was  uncertain  whether  to  feel  disappointed  or  not  at  their 
resolution  to  retire.  On  the  one  hand  she  would  have  liked 
nothing  better  than  to  make  one  more  trial  of  her  military 
skill,  by  leading  her  troops  into  actual  battle ;  but  on  the  other 
she  had  changed  her  mind  about  the  King  himself;  perhaps 
because  she  had  just  before  let  him  slip.  She  now  again  was 
inclined  to  marry  him,  and  she  was  not  sure  that  an  action 
might  not  have  deranged  her  plans;  so  she  wrote  to  the 
Queen  that,  If  a  lasting  peace  were  desired,  the  best  way 
would  be  to  give  her  Louis  for  a  husband.  Anne  preferred 
withdrawing  her  army,  and  Mademoiselle  sent  hers  to  pur- 
sue It.  When  they  were  gone,  she  remained  behind  In 
Orleans,  where,  though  half  her  time  was  taken  up  in  laugh- 
ing over  her  late  exploit,  dancing,  and  revelling,  the  other 
half  was  spent  In  making  sensible  and  humane  arrangements 
to  repair  the  Injuries  which  the  lower  classes  had  suffered 
from  the  interruption  of  trade  caused  by  the  recent  danger. 

Conde*s   connection    with    Spain    had    so   weakened    his 


340  LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE 

influence,  even  among  the  Parisians,  that  he  became  violent 
and  desperate,  and  at  last  ventured  on  a  pitched  battle  with 
the  royal  army  under  Turenne,  though  Louis  himself  was  in 
the  Marshal's  camp;  and  as  the  presence  of  the  King  was 
universally  reckoned  to  make  resistance  more  heinous.  In 
spite  of  his  personal  heroism,  which  he  never  displayed  more 
brilliantly,  it  was  evident  that  he  must  soon  be  overpowered 
by  Turenne's  superior  numbers,  under  the  direction  of  super- 
ior skill ;  and  as  a  last  hope,  he  sent  messengers  to  d'Orleans, 
who  was  at  the  Luxembourg,  to  implore  his  aid.  The  Duke, 
always  a  coward  both  politically  and  personally,  was  more 
terrified  and  irresolute  than  ever.  He  professed  to  be  too 
ill  even  to  go  to  the  walls  and  see  what  was  going  on.  All 
that  his  daughter  could  extract  from  him  was  an  order  in 
his  capacity  of  lieutenant-general  of  the  kingdom,  to  the 
municipal  authorities  to  arm  the  militia,  and  to  allow 
Conde's  baggage  admission  into  the  city.  The  magistrates, 
who  had  just  received  orders  of  an  exactly  contrary  tenor 
from  the  King,  hesitated  to  obey  those  of  his  brother  in 
preference.  She  scolded  and  threatened  till  she  made  them 
not  only  submit,  but  agree  to  place  the  militia  under  her  own 
command;  and  then,  thus  invested  with  actual  military 
authority,  she  ordered  the  gates  to  be  opened  to  the  Prince's 
baggage;  took  up  her  own  station  on  the  ramparts  of  the 
Bastille,  and  having  ordered  the  guns  to  be  loaded,  calmly 
surveyed  the  field  of  battle  with  her  opera-glass,  and  waited 
for  the  moment  of  more  decisive  action.  It  was  not  long 
coming:  at  first  the  Prince  had  but  5,000  men  to  Turenne*s 
12,000,  and  the  result  of  so  unequal  a  contest  had  only  been 


LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE  341 

delayed,  it  could  not  be  averted,  by  his  own  marvellous 
energy  and  desperate  valour.  His  enemies  affirmed  that  he 
must  be  a  devil,  for  that  no  man  could  do  all  he  did  on  that 
day;  and  now  the  odds  were  growing  too  vast  for  even  him 
to  contend  against,  for  Turenne's  artillery  had  reached  the 
field,  and  was  beginning  to  play  with  deadly  effect  on  his 
thinned  ranks.  He  was  reduced  at  last  to  accept  Mad- 
emoiselle's offer,  which  he  had  before  refused,  of  leave  to 
withdraw  his  whole  army  into  the  city;  and,  as  his  men  filed 
in  through  the  gates,  she  protected  their  retreat  by  opening 
a  heavy  fire  on  the  royal  troops  which  were  pressing  upon 
them.  Such  conduct  savoured  more  of  resolution  than  of 
policy.  Mazarin,  in  allusion  to  her  recent  proposal  to  marry 
the  King,  remarked  that  she  "  had  shot  down  her  husband." 
And  he  spoke  truly. 

We  have  said  that  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  herself 
was  not  insensible  to  the  attractions  of  honourable  love. 
After  the  failure  of  her  projects  with  regard  to  Louis,  he 
himself  offered  her  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  the 
very  evening  of  the  death  of  his  first  duchess,*  whom  Louis 
himself  did  not  doubt  that  he  had  poisoned. 

She  had  recently  become  attached  to  a  young  officer  of 
noble  birth,  the  Marquis  of  Puyguilhem,  so  much  more 
known  by  the  title  he  subsequently  acquired  of  Count  de 
Lauzun,  that  we  shall  only  speak  of  him  by  that  name.  His 
appearance  in  some  respect  belied  his  character,  for  he  was 
small  in  stature,  and  of  a  fairness  of  complexion  which 
amounted  to  effeminacy.  But  France  did  not  contain  a 
*  See  pages  282-286. 


342  LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE 

prouder,  bolder,  or  more  resolute  spirit;  which  more  than 
once  led  him  to  brave  Louis  himself,  conduct  which  heroes 
the  most  intrepid  on  the  field  of  battle  did  not  dare  to 
imitate. 

Of  the  courtship  she  has  left  us  the  most  minute  details. 
As  no  one  out  of  the  royal  family  could  venture  to  raise  his 
eyes  to  one  within  that  august  circle,  she  was  the  courter; 
and  it  was  she  herself  who,  when  she  had  overcome  his 
scruples,  or,  it  would  be  more  proper  to  say,  removed  his 
doubts  as  to  the  possibility  of  carrying  out  her  plans,  under- 
took to  procure  the  consent  of  the  King.  Finally  he  gave  his 
consent.  To  raise  her  intended  husband  to  a  rank  nearer 
her  own,  she  conferred  on  him  several  of  her  own  estates, 
the  duchy  of  Montpensier,  and  Dombes,  over  which  she 
exercised  a  kind  of  sovereignty,  being  among  them;  and  the 
marriage  might  have  taken  place  if  Laugun  himself,  by  the 
time  he  wasted  in  making  the  most  magnificent  preparations 
for  his  wedding,  had  not  given  some  of  his  enemies  leisure 
to  work  on  the  King's  mind  and  to  induce  him  to  retract  his 
permission.  Mademoiselle  was  in  despair;  she  begged  Louis 
rather  to  put  her  to  death ;  but  he  was  now  firm  or  obstinate, 
though  professing  the  highest  opinion  of  Lauzun,  and  admit- 
ting that  the  Princess  could  not  have  a  more  able  or  honest 
friend,  nor  a  more  faithful  adviser;  and  proposing  to  salve 
over  the  disappointment  to  the  lover  himself  by  making  him 
a  Duke  and  Marshal  of  France.  Lauzun  declined  such 
consolation.  He  would  not  allow  his  views  to  bear  the 
appearance  of  having  been  dictated  by  interest;  and  he  not 
only  pressed  Mademoiselle  to  take  back  the  duchies  which 


LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE  343 

she  had  given  him,  but  tried  to  reconcile  her  to  the  King's 
decision,  and  even  proposed  to  go  himself  as  ambassador  to 
England  to  negotiate  a  marriage  betvreen  her  and  the  Duke 
of  York.  Of  this  she  would  not  hear,  and,  though  it  is 
impossible  to  say  when  it  took  place,  it  seems  certain  that  she 
resolved  on  the  King's  pleasure,  and  that  they  were  privately 
married.  It  is  not  impossible  that  it  may  have  been  the 
knowledge  of  this  fact  that  in  the  winter  of  1671  caused 
Lauzun's  arrest  and  confinement  at  Pignerol,  though  Saint- 
Simon  attributes  this  to  the  continued  machinations  of 
Louvois  and  Madame  de  Montespan.  His  imprisonment 
lasted  many  years,  the  Princess  in  vain  exerting  all  her  influ- 
ence to  procure  his  liberation ;  till  at  last,  Louis,  to  his  eternal 
dishonour,  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a  profit  of  her  dis- 
tress, and  released  her  lover,  or  her  husband,  on  condition 
of  her  settling  the  reversion  of  her  most  valuable  estates  on 
the  most  unworthy  of  his  illegimitate  children,  the  Due  du 
Maine. 

But  though  separation  did  not  weaken  their  affection, 
reunion  did.  A  courtier  of  the  school  in  which  he  was 
brought  up  could  not  refrain  from  showing  attentions  to 
more  ladies  than  one;  Mademoiselle  conceived,  not  unreason- 
ably, that  she  had  at  all  events  earned  a  monopoly  of  his. 
She  was  jealous,  and  showed  her  jealousy;  one  evening  she 
scratched  his  face  before  a  large  company,  and  he  had  to 
pursue  her  on  his  knees,  clinging  to  her  skirts,  the  whole 
length  of  a  gallery  before  he  could  obtain  a  temporary  for- 
giveness. At  last  the  quarrels  became  so  frequent  that  for 
peace's  sake  he  retired  to  England,  where,  some  years  after- 


344  LA   GRANDE   MADEMOISELLE 

wards,  the  reign  of  the  Stuart  dynasty  gave  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  recovering  the  favour  of  his  own  sovereign,  by  con- 
ducting Mary  of  Modena  and  the  infant  Prince  of  Wales 
in  safety  to  France.  It  did  not,  however,  regain  for  him 
the  affections  of  his  wife.  She  refused  to  see  him,  and  when, 
a  year  or  two  afterwards,  she  died  of  a  lingering  disease,  she 
left  all  her  possessions  of  which  she  had  not  previously  dis- 
posed, not  to  him,  but  to  the  young  Due  d'Orleans. 


THE    END 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY—TEL  NO.  642^405 

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aublect  to  recall  after  • 

[^'  FEB  1471    22 

REC'DLD    FEE 

1 2  71 -K)  AM  41? 

LD21A-60m-3,'70                        ,,  , General  Llbrajy 
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